


Starsick

by spaceOdementia



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Because Cloud is a potty mouth, Becoming Friends Again, Childhood Friends, Childhood is just a traumatic experience in general amirite, Cloti Fall Festival, Cloud always seems to like pasta?, Cloud gets into fights, Cloud is a Smartass, Cloud likes art, Cloud likes running, Cloud's a bad boy, Day 1 Prompt - Tender Feelings and Resilience, Detention, Eighteen year old dweebs, F/M, Fall Festival 2020, Fits the Day 1 Prompt if you squint, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Heavy Petting, High School, How Do I Tag, I blame the teenage hormones, Idiots in Love, Inspired by Music, Language, Mild Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Not actually underage sex, POV Cloud Strife, POV Tifa Lockhart, Probably because everyone knows by now that I'm a cloti slut right?, Rating May Change, Romance, Short Story, Slow Build, Teenage Drama, They reach third base when Tifa is still seventeen, Tifa is a cheerleader, Tifa is actually still seventeen, Tifa's a good girl, Underage Drinking, Why Do I Keep Writing Them As Teenagers?, title from a song, will this have smut?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 62,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27566971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia
Summary: The passage of time changes a lot of things. Seasons. Terrain. People. Once upon a time, they were childhood friends. Now, he's always in detention, daring and prodding the kids who don't like him, and she's too busy with school and extracurriculars to get in trouble.Until the one day she does.Suddenly, their lives intertwine again, and it feels like it might be another beginning.For Cloti Fall Festival 2020 - Day 1 Prompt: Tender Feelings and Resilience
Relationships: Cloud Strife/Tifa Lockhart, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 212
Kudos: 279
Collections: CloTi Fall Festival 2020 (ClotiWeek)





	1. Now and Then

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to be doing something else. ~~I swear Run will be finished soon, it's just that it's Cloti Fall Festival and I have no time HELP ME I STG~~. Shout out to my work commute for always producing ridiculous story scenes in my brain.
> 
> Deep, endless gratitude to Somebodys_Nightmare, as always, for beta-ing, for listening to me, and because I don't know how she's put up with me for this long. Really. She's a saint. She's too good to me. Please check out her stories because they are some of the most fabulous works that exist in the fandom.
> 
> Also, thank you for coming to check out this story! I hope you all enjoy this. This is going to be inspired by Cloti Fall Festival as a whole, because some of the prompts are SO INSPIRING. I will more than likely come back and use the ones I don't have time for this week in other stories. 
> 
> Happy reading!

The first time Tifa Lockhart talked to Cloud Strife, he was alone on the seat of a swing set. It was almost dusk, the sun beginning to descend below the large western hills.

 _He’s always alone,_ she had thought, walking up to the empty seat beside him. She dropped her backpack along the metal legs holding up the swings. She took the seat before asking him if she could.

“Can I swing with you?”

He hadn’t been actually swinging. He had only been gently swaying, staring at the ground in deep, faraway thoughts.

He glanced at her before looking away, his brows furrowing. “Uh…sure.”

He wasn’t the easiest to talk to. Fortunately, Tifa had an exceptional talent to chatter. At the age of nine, she had realized she was good at it. She talked to all her teachers. She talked to parents. She talked to kids both younger and older. She had been praised for it, so she knew it must have been something not everyone had in ample measure.

She quickly realized Cloud was not one of these kids.

She talked to him as much as she talked _at_ him. She talked to him about his mom and his favorite color and how the leaves changed in autumn. She told him about her dad and how her mom was in heaven and how she’s always wanted a dog but her dad kept telling her no because it was too much responsibility, but her dad didn’t realize how responsible she could be because he’s never let her have a pet in the first place.

Cloud would listen, but he didn’t give much feedback. He seemed content enough to sit there and sway with her while she began to create a pendulum with her body, swinging up and up and up.

Eventually, Tifa would define them as good friends. She’d meet him at the swings. He’d smile at her and shyly ask how her day was. She’d respond in kind. They would race to see who could swing the highest and jump out of their seats, landing as far away into the dirt as their bodies would allow. They would laugh and talk about how dumb school could be and _hey do you want to sit with me at lunch? I’ll trade you my chips for string cheese._

It was great for a while. They spent their days acting like they were the only two who mattered in their elementary lives. When middle school hit, classes were broader with different electives and teachers, the three elementary schools that made up the town all compacted into one. Tifa met new people, made new friends, and it became harder and harder to keep up with how simple elementary used to be.

High school was even busier. Life became more dramatic. Rumors and flirtations filled the hallways— _Did you see Derek with Rebecca?_

_Do you think he likes me?_

_He is so cute. When did he get so cute?_

_I don’t know if I should ask her to the game this weekend. Do you think she’ll say yes?_

Studies became harder.

Friendships came and went, old relationships overshadowed by cheerleading practice or orchestra recitals, weekends either filled with sports games, competitions, or homework.

By the time Tifa entered senior year, she had thought about Cloud from time to time. She had seen him occasionally in the hallways, baggy hoodie encompassing his body like a lazy blanket. She’d hear things about him—Strife the troublemaker, lumped in with the _bad_ kids. He’d had in school suspension before, punching some kids behind the school, vandalizing the building, even participating in _smoking_ on the slab a few blocks away during lunch hour. She’d wondered about him, wishing she had the courage to talk to him, to somehow rekindle the lovely warmth of childhood friendship. But it was too different, now. There was an impossibly vast rift of the teenage years between any relationship they had before.And as different as she was certain he was, she was different, too. Over time, the jungle of adolescence brings out true character, once so promising in the younger years, ripening into what it’s supposed to be in the later stages of life.

* * *

The first time Tifa Lockhart sees Cloud Strife her senior year, she is walking down the hallway. Cloud is up against the lockers, the meaty hand of Mitch Alexander, the star linebacker of the football team, wrapped around the collar of his black hoodie. It’s emblazoned with a band name, too loose around his arms and dipping below his waist. Mitch is about three times the size of Cloud, and he is red in the face as he breathes into Cloud’s neck.

Mitch is an intimidating boy, too big and powerful to be eighteen, but Cloud doesn’t seem phased in the slightest. In fact, he’s smirking. His body is lax against the lockers, not even attempting to fight back. His eyes are blasé, devil-may-care, and when Mitch brings his body forward and slams him into the lockers again, his expression doesn’t flicker at all.

Tifa pauses her walk, her hand tightening over the strap of her backpack.

“You little shit, Strife. I know it was you. You might fool everyone else, but you don’t fool me.”

Mitch slams him again. At the power behind it, Tifa sees the briefest wince flash across his eyes.

“You think I give a fuck about who you like, Mitch?” Cloud says, his voice slightly breathless. “Newsflash. I don’t.”

Mitch’s cheeks redden further. “You’re going to tell Ashley you lied.”

Cloud’s smirk grows. “Why would I do that?”

“Because,” Mitch says. “I will mess you up so bad, you won’t know your head from your ass.”

Cloud give a short laugh. “I’d like to see you try.”

Tifa watches and listens, hesitating before taking another step. She ignores all the fights. They happen at least once a week, but she doesn’t get involved. She’s not supposed to, and it’s not worth it. That’s what her father’s always said.

 _Let the idiots be idiots,_ he’s told her. _You can’t help everyone, Tifa. You can’t be friends with everyone._

Mitch lets go of Cloud, and he slides to the floor, landing on his feet. Mitch swings his thick fist at his face, but Cloud ducks. A loud bang resounds down the hallway, and Mitch makes an indentation in the metal locker, his knuckles imprinted in the door.

Cloud swings at his stomach, right below his sternum, and Mitch wheezes. Mitch swings his elbow and cuts it across Cloud’s cheek, breaking the skin.

At the start of the tussle, Tifa’s feet take her forward, having a mind of their own.

“Stop!” she shouts, grabbing at Mitch’s shoulders. “You’re both going to get in loads of trouble!”

Tifa’s eyes catch Cloud’s, and he immediately stills. Mitch doesn’t, bringing a fist flying at Cloud’s already bloody cheek. It connects in a nasty crack.

“Fuck,” Cloud breathes.

“Mitch!” Tifa says.

“This ain’t none of your business, Teef,” Mitch says, glancing down at her. “This punk deserves what’s comin’ to him.”

Tifa places her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. “Then I guess you deserve it, too.”

Mitch scoffs, but his face softens as he looks at her. “C’mon, Tifa. We have a big game this weekend. Coach can’t afford to bench me.”

Tifa huffs. “Then I guess you should have thought about that before picking a fight with Cloud!”

“You should listen to her, Alexander,” Cloud answers, lowering his hand from his face. “It’d be a shame if you missed your _big game_ because a punk told Ashley what a moron you are.”

Mitch fumes again. “I swear to you, Strife—“

Tifa steps in front of Mitch, not quite sure what she’s doing. All she knows is that she’s angry—at Mitch for being ridiculous, and Cloud for egging him on.

“Stop it, Mitch,” Tifa says, her brows furrowing over her eyes. “I mean it.” She turns and looks over her shoulder. “You, too, Cloud.”

Cloud blinks at her, straightening in shock. The skin under his left eye is swelling up, puckering and purpling. He glances away from her, unable to maintain her stare.

This is the first time she’s talked to him since…in the heat of the moment, Tifa can’t remember.

Mitch begins to laugh. “What’s the matter, Strife? Never talk to a cheerleader before?”

At his words, Cloud finally falters. “I—what? Of course I’ve talked to—“ Cloud interrupts himself, scoffing. “Shut the fuck up, Mitch.”

“Oh, I got it,” Mitch says, crossing his arms. He’s beginning to smile. “You think you’re so much cooler than everyone, Strife, but you can’t even talk to a girl.”

Cloud’s jaw bunches, and he glares daggers at Mitch. “I talked to Ashley, didn’t I?”

Mitch starts laughing. “Did you wear a diaper? Because I bet you were shitting your pants!”

Tifa can see Cloud’s fuse starting to shorten, burning down to the wick. His cheeks are flooding with a darkening blush.

“Mitch, stop—“ she tries.

Cloud steps around her and surprises her by throwing his fist right into Mitch’s face. His knuckles connect with his eye socket, and Mitch yelps, stepping back from the force.

“What the hell!” he shouts, grabbing at his face.

Tifa gasps. “Cloud! You didn’t—!”

The bell rings overhead, and Tifa doesn’t notice one of the teachers having been alerted to the situation. Tifa’s heart sinks when she sees it’s Mr. Rutledge. He is one of the most uptight professors in the school. Of course he would be the one to break up the fight.

There is a glower on his face, and Tifa pushes her nails into her palm, trying to prepare for the onslaught.

“Alright, kids, break it up. Alexander. Strife. Lockhart. What is the meaning of this?” he bellows, staring down at Cloud and Tifa, his face in line with Mitch’s.

“He broke my eye!” Mitch shouts, his accusation nearly a wail.

“Your eye can’t break, genius,” Cloud mutters. Mr. Rutledge glares at him.

“I’m not surprised to see you in the middle of this, Mr. Strife. What is it, now? The fifth time this year?”

Cloud answers with silence.

“And Miss Lockhart, I’m _very_ surprised to see you, here,” he states. “I’m quite disappointed in all of you.”

“I—I’m…” Tifa starts, not knowing what to say.

“He started it!” Mitch points, interrupting her. Cloud bristles.

“Are you serious?” he says. “You’re the one who grabbed me and slammed me against the lockers.”

“You’re the one who stole my chance with Ashley!”

“You’re the one who couldn’t leave it alone,” Cloud snarls.

“Enough!” Mr. Rutledge shouts, and it echoes in the hallway. Tifa freezes. The boys shift and straighten.

“All of you. I don’t care who started it. I don’t even care the reasoning behind it. Detention will be held after school today and will continue on for the rest of the next week. Violence will not be tolerated under my watch, nor will it be tolerated under this administration’s code of ethics. You all will report to the front office once the school day ends.”

“But Mr. Rutledge, I have practice after school! The team needs me!”

“Then I guess this will be a lesson for you, won’t it, Mr. Alexander?” Mr. Rutledge pushes his bifocals higher up onto the bridge of his nose, glaring at all of them for one lingering glance. “Now, get to class.”

With that, Mr. Rutledge leaves them to their own devices. Mitch huffs, shaking his head, and reaching forward to pick up his backpack. He slings it over his shoulder.

“This isn’t over, Strife,” he says. He hesitates before turning to Tifa. “Sorry, Tifa. You should have left us alone.”

Tifa frowns at him, shaking her head. “Whatever, Mitch. Don’t be such a bully, next time.”

Cloud says nothing, merely watching Mitch disappear down the hallway. He turns, and they catch eyes again. They hold an awkward stare for a moment before he looks over her shoulder.

“You don’t deserve detention,” he says. “You didn’t do anything.”

Tifa shrugs. “I knew better, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“…too bad, then,” Cloud trails, slouching and turning his body away from her. “See ya later.”

He walks off, and Tifa stares after him.

He’s so different, she thinks, and it strikes a melancholy chord inside of her. What had she expected? What did she think he’d be like?

She doesn’t know. Sighing, she treks in the opposite direction, unsure how to prepare herself for the rest of the day. She’s never been in detention before. She’s never gotten in trouble this badly.

Senior year. She had thought she had this high school thing figured out.

Apparently not.

* * *

When Tifa arrives at the front office, she is directed to the _room of incarceration,_ as it’s called among the masses. It is simply a closed off classroom situated right beside the principal’s office and down the hall from the nurse’s station. There is nothing intimidating or scary about it, only that it is horridly bland, the walls plain and bare, and the chalkboard nearly pristine with its underuse.

Tifa is the first one there. She greets the supervisor who sits behind her large, weathered, and chipped wooden desk. She’s an older woman, thin glasses perched on her nose and secured with a chain, her silver and gray hair twisted into a bun and held together with a wide-toothed clip. There is an eye-catching mole near her upper lip, and she seems undeniably unimpressed by Tifa’s cheery greeting when she signs in. Tifa falters and takes the paper the woman gives her, listed with the instructions to write out a 500 word essay over the reason behind her presence in school purgatory and how to avoid it and repent in the future.

Tifa chooses a seat a few rows back from the front desk of the supervisor, adjacent to the door. She pulls out a pencil from her backpack and settles in, sighing as she ruminates over her beginning sentence.

 _'I am here because I did nothing,'_ won’t fly. ' _I’m here because I tried to be helpful, but guess what? I’ll never try to break up a fight again. I’ve learned my lesson, Dad.'_

Tifa stares at the lines of the paper for so long, she can hear the clock ticking over the doorway. When Cloud finally strolls into the room, it’s about five minutes past the hour. The woman, surprisingly, doesn’t seem to care.

“Cloud,” she says, raising a brow. “Fancy seeing you here. Again.”

“I do it so I can see you, Mrs. Bouchard,” Cloud answers. It’s so natural and delivered with such ease, Tifa has to blink. Mrs. Bouchard shakes her head, acting off-put and exasperated, but Tifa can see her amusement.

“Sweet of you,” she says. “What’d you do this time?”

Cloud lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “A girl asked me about Mitch. I told her the truth, and he got angry.”

“Hm…” she hums. “That’s a very nice shiner you have.”

“Fights don’t happen if you don’t have battle scars,” he says.

Mrs. Bouchard sighs. “What did Mitch do?”

“He cheated on the midterm.”

“Oh, that boy. It’s all football and girls and nothing else.”

Cloud takes his paper from her and turns. “Doesn’t matter. His choice.”

“Your choice, too, Cloud,” Mrs. Bouchard calls from behind him, and her tone is lightly scolding.

Cloud grimaces, though Tifa isn’t sure if it’s from her words or the paper. “Another essay? Can’t you come up with something more interesting?”

His eyes lock onto Tifa when he looks up. His blue eyes are much more startling when bordered with the darkened purple of the bruising on his cheek, and her heart leaps like a frog. Tifa automatically straightens. He averts his eyes and glances at all the other chairs. He shuffles in between the rows, choosing one of the furthest desks from her. Tifa fidgets in her seat, frowning as she watches him avoid everything about her.

“No,” Mrs. Bouchard answers. “I enjoy how much it annoys you.”

Cloud scoffs, but he glances up and gives her a little smile. He settles into his seat as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, his hoodie looking too comfortable and swallowing his torso. He’s wearing a baseball cap, twisted backwards on his head. It smashes down the golden locks, hardly doing its job to tame them.

“And Cloud?” Mrs. Bouchard says. He looks at her. “Use words this time? As much as I love your drawings—and I do—please complete the assignment properly so I can send in an exemplary rating to the principal. I always hate when I have to report your rebellious actions and dock you for your talents.”

Tifa blinks, staring across the room at Cloud. Drawings? Talents?

She sees Cloud stiffen in the chair, his cheeks turning pink. He side glances at her and notices her gaze. He turns and shifts in his seat.

“Uh…sure thing, Mrs. Bouchard,” he says, voice soft.

“Thank you, Cloud.” She smiles at him, and Cloud’s cheeks darken. It is overshadowed by his bruise.

He busies himself by grabbing a pencil from his backpack, and he immediately begins to scribble words onto the paper. Tifa looks on and feels a rush of envy. She can’t even think of the first word to start the essay.

She taps her pencil over and over, thinking and failing. It’s ten minutes after the hour before Tifa realizes Mitch is still missing.

“Um…” she starts, slowly raising her hand. “Mrs. Bouchard?”

“You don’t have to raise your hand, dear,” she answers, looking over her glasses at her. It makes it look like she is still, again, unimpressed. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, sorry,” Tifa retracts, bringing her arm down. “I was just wondering… Mitch still isn’t here.”

She makes a noise. “Oh, he won’t be. His coach overruled the detention.”

Cloud snorts. “Because a football practice is so important.”

“Cloud…” Mrs. Bouchard warns.

“That’s not fair,” Tifa protests, frowning. “He shouldn’t get a pass. He could have really hurt Cloud.”

Cloud looks at her, his eyebrows raising in surprise. His expression makes her feel as though she said something wrong.

“Fat chance,” Cloud mutters. “He moves too slow.”

“But he clipped your cheek,” Tifa says.

Cloud scowls. “Only because you distracted me.”

Tifa presses her back into the chair. “I…”

Her words fade away, because he’s right. He was railroaded off his heavy track of nonchalance because she tried to stop the fight. She’s suddenly struck with the thought of what would have happened had she not stepped in. This week’s worth of detention might not even have come to pass.

“I’m…” she tries again.

“Okay, children,” Mrs. Bouchard says. “What’s done is done. Coach Wallace has assured me Mr. Alexander will get adequate treatment both today and during the game tomorrow evening.”

“Yeah, right,” Cloud says, crossing his arms. “He’ll get to do a hundred push-ups instead of fifty or whatever, because _that’ll_ teach him how to use his brain.”

Tifa bites her lip to keep from smiling.

“That’s enough,” Mrs. Bouchard sighs. “I know it might not seem right or fair right now, but I trust Coach Wallace.”

“I don’t,” Cloud grouses.

Mrs. Bouchard ignores him, glancing at Tifa.

“And _your_ coach seemed surprised, Tifa, but he didn’t seem too worried about your performance suffering from missing practice.”

Tifa tugs at the sleeve of her shirt. “Well, the choreography doesn’t change much during the season…”

“She doesn’t need to practice,” Cloud states.

Tifa stares at the side of his face. “What?”

Cloud is looking intently at his paper, but he gives her a shrug. It is so blasé and apathetic. “I’m sure you’ll be fine without going every single day.”

Tifa isn’t sure how to respond.

“Unlike Mitch,” Cloud finishes, and he starts scribbling again on the paper. It doesn’t look like he’s writing any words, though. It looks like he’s…doodling.

“Yeah…” Tifa says. “I guess so.”

Cloud finishes his essay in what must be world record time. Tifa takes nearly the whole hour of detention to finish her own. Cloud pops earbuds in and Mrs. Bouchard lets him listen to music from his phone for the majority of the time. He’s opened up another notebook, and Tifa thinks he must be working on another class assignment or, perhaps, drawing like Mrs. Bouchard had mentioned before. It’s hard to tell from so far away.

Once Mrs. Bouchard dismisses them, Cloud leaves his earbuds in and walks out of the room. Tifa immediately starts to follow, but lead forms in her stomach as she watches him blaze a trail down the hallway.

She thinks about calling to him and catching up, but she’s unsure of what she’d even say. Apologize? Ask him how he’s been? If he’s going to the game tomorrow evening?

He doesn’t seem very interested in her. He hardly glances her way. He places forth more energy in avoiding her presence than most everything else she’s witnessed from him. His earbuds are deterrent enough—nothing says _don’t talk to me_ than earbuds, a black hoodie, and zero eye contact.

Tifa sighs as he disappears around the corner of the hall toward the exit.

* * *

Tifa doesn’t see Cloud at the game.

It isn’t as though she can _see_ everyone, but she faces the home crowd at all the football games. They go through their stanzas of cheers, shaking their pom poms, and making straight, fine lines with their arms.

_Hold that line, blue and white! Nibel wolves are outta sight!_

_The wolves are back to lead the pack! Attack, attack, attack!_

_N-I-B-E-L, what does that spell? The wolves will send you straight to — hey!_

Tifa is one of the cheerleaders they flip into the air and catch. Usually, right before the propulsion into the air, she is able to see most of the crowd all around her. Their eyes are on the field, and they don’t give her any mind. They all blend into stripes of white and blue. She makes it a point to pick out a few faces, making them crystal clear before they blur into her flip.

It’s become a tradition for her, now. She’ll see a boy or a girl and have a memory of them, or she won’t know them at all, thinking about something she’s heard about them—those words in the hallways or classrooms that may or may not be true. Then she’ll spin and land in the arms of her teammates, the rush and jolt from their catch never dulling. It doesn’t matter how many times they do it. Her heart thuds a few rounds before it calms, she jumps out of their arms and grins, and they take their places once more to repeat the cheers.

Her eyes rove over the crowd, unconsciously looking for him. Halfway through the game, she wonders why she is. She’s never looked for him so thoroughly before, but she thinks it must be how their lives have suddenly intersected again. The hallway. Detention. How Cloud said she doesn’t need to practice for cheer—because that means he’s come to the games before and _watched_ her. Doesn’t it? He can’t believe that if he’s never seen her perform.

A flare runs up into her face, and it’s silly of her to feel this way. It’s so abrupt and unwarranted, but it’s there nonetheless.

It’s how he won’t look at her. That’s what it is.

That’s what makes her look for him.

That’s why she’s so disappointed when she realizes he isn’t there.

* * *

On Monday, Tifa vows to herself she’ll sit nearer to Cloud in detention. She will ask Cloud why he didn’t go to the game. She even imagines the potential conversation of it.

_Hey, Cloud, how was your weekend?_

He’ll look at her before looking away. _Fine. Yours?_

 _It was great,_ she’ll say, grinning. _We won the football game. Did you go?_

She’ll ask even though she already knows he wasn’t there, but he can’t know that she knows because she’ll sound like a lunatic if she says she didn’t see him. It’ll imply that she had been looking. Then he might _really_ avoid her.

And then he’ll say…something. Anything.

But perhaps he’ll put his earbuds in, turn away, write out another essay within five minutes, and ignore her completely.

Of course, like most things imagined with great hope and expectation, it doesn’t go anything like she plans.

She sits smack dab in the middle of the detention classroom, forcing their distance to be cut in half as compared to last Friday. Cloud gives her a wide berth and sits in the back corner. She glances at him but can’t catch his eye. Her courage dwindles. She bites her lip. She questions all of her potential conversation starters. He’s so intimidating with his earbuds and the scratching of his pencil against the paper. He is precise with his movements. The resting scowl on his face is a defined barrier. It deflects smiles and doesn’t care about any attempts at talking.

Tifa deflates the entire hour until they are dismissed, and Cloud shuttles out of the room like a man on a mission. She sighs and redefines her goals, settles back into resolve.

 _Tomorrow,_ she tells herself. _I’ll talk to him tomorrow._

Tomorrow comes and goes, and Tifa is left in that same seat in the middle of the classroom. She feels the slow settling of dread fill her throat every time she opens her mouth to say something. Just one word. Maybe two. They all curdle on her tongue. They feel inadequate as her lips form the shadow of them.

Cloud carries on as he has the previous days, scratching and scratching, writing and perhaps doodling and drawing. Tifa would know if she just _asked._

The clock ticking above the doorway is too loud, and the room is too quiet. Tifa knows for a fact that Mrs. Bouchard hates her by the way she glances at her over her glasses, lips thin and puckered by the wrinkles surrounding the rim of her mouth. She will hear everything Tifa tries to ask Cloud, and something about that is strangely terrifying.

When they are dismissed, Tifa losing yet another window as Cloud disappears through the doorway, she is struck with dumb surprise when Mrs. Bouchard addresses her.

“He won’t bite you,” she says. “I’m sure he’ll try, but it won’t be enough to hurt you.”

Tifa’s mouth parts. She pauses, in the middle of moving her english notebook into her backpack.

“What?”

She gives Tifa a flat stare. “I wasn’t born yesterday, dear. You’ve been struggling to talk to Cloud every day you’re in here.”

“I…” Tifa starts, feeling blood rush into her cheeks. “I’ve made it that obvious?”

“Of course you have,” she answers, the words hitting Tifa’s stomach like a wooden stick. “But not to Cloud. He won’t know unless you tell him in layman’s terms. As perceptive as he is with everything else, he is the least about girls. All boys are at this age.”

At the implication, Tifa feels the need to explain. “I don’t—I don’t _like_ him,” she says, the words more adamant than she was expecting. “I just...we used to be friends, that’s all, and I…” she sighs. “I don’t know how to talk to him anymore.”

Mrs. Bouchard looks her over for a moment, eyes a steely shade of old green. They look like the leaves at the beginning of fall, the color leaching out of them, dulling and fading as they cling to the branches.

“It’s easy, Tifa,” she states blandly. “You say _hello.”_

The words sound like a discordant pattern on a piano, ringing into her ears. They stay with her throughout the night, at dinner, as she brushes her teeth, as she crawls into bed and tries to sleep.

_It’s easy, Tifa. You say hello._

They light a match in her stomach. She imagines the snarled lines around Mrs. Bouchard’s mouth as she said them, and it hardens her nerves. She feels the burn of a challenge settle into her belly, and it dries out the chill of anxiety she experiences every time she thinks about being in Cloud’s presence.

Sure, it’s _easy._ She’ll show her how easy. She’ll talk to him like she wants. She’ll smile at him like she’s been attempting. She’ll sit in the seat right next to him. She’ll ask about the band logo on his hoodie, and she’ll ask him why he didn’t go to the game when _everyone_ goes to the game. She won’t care about the silence. She’ll ignore the clock, and she’ll persevere through his bite.

Tomorrow.

* * *

Wednesdays are good for two things.

One is cross country practice. Waking up an hour before dawn is _not_ a good thing, but the reason behind it is. It’s the morning they perform their time trial runs. It is about pacing and longevity. It is about outlasting. Cloud likes this part about running the most, because he is competing against himself and himself only. It is how his heart throbs by the end, how it squeezes everything its got to keep him going. It’s about when he looks up at the hill he’s running over, watching the sun climb itself out of the night and create the spill of morning.

The second is dinner. His mother makes lasagna. It is cheesy and rich and meaty, and it sticks to his ribcage with decadent fullness. It’s his reward if he improves on his time trial, and it is his consolation if he doesn’t.

But to get there, he has to survive yet another detention with Tifa Lockhart.

To say he was shocked at her appearance in the hallway that previous Friday would be an understatement. He hadn’t interacted with her in about five years, nor had he truly come face to face with her in all that time. Her suddenly standing in front of him with her eyes pinched and worried, trying to shield him from Mitch Alexander? Out of absolutely nowhere?

He didn’t believe it happened when it was _happening,_ and he still didn’t believe it by the time he got to the detention classroom. He only believed it when he caught eyes with her, looking up from Mrs. Bouchard’s assignment sheet. She had been sitting innocently in one of the side desks. Her hair was long and straight as it had been forever, falling down to her lower back. She was wearing a soft smile, as if she was unsure how else to react to him being there.

He knew how he was going to react. He was going to stay as far away from her at all possible, taking the seat on the opposite side of the room. He ignored her, put his earbuds in, and finished homework. He scribbled little doodles when he got bored with the work or when a song entered his ears that demanded he listen and take a break from logical thinking.

He glanced at her occasionally because he couldn’t help it, or when he thought she might be looking at him. When he did, her eyebrows had been furrowed in concentration as she stared at the paper in front of her, her pencil moving slowly along the designated lines for the essay. She’d bite her lip, then she’d smash her cheek into one of her palms, looking undeniably frustrated at the assignment.

He knew she couldn’t be used to assignments like this—short essays about the consequences of her actions. He doubted she’d ever gotten in trouble in her life.

As he heads back to the classroom that Wednesday after school, Cloud holds onto the relief of only having two more days of completely explicit torture. Only two more days. Two more days, and he’ll have his normal life back. He’ll stop being dragged over the sharp edges of old, once forgotten memories. He’ll stop being tormented by her presence. She’s already on the edge of his periphery. It seems as though she always has been. She even lives in the adjacent house from his own. She is literally the girl next door. He can see her house from his bedroom _window._

Not that he’s stared at it. Or waited for her to appear in her window after school at night, when he’s drawing at his desk. That would be…weird.

He closes his blinds from now on. It’s only happened once in a blue moon.

If that.

He gets there before Tifa for the first time. Mrs. Bouchard silently hands him the assignment, which reads: "Describe two instances of failure and how you overcame them."

Cloud sneers at the prompt. Last time it had been, “Discuss one instance of reaching a goal and how it made you feel.” That one was easy to bullshit.

“Failures?” he asks her.

“I know you believe yourself to be immune to such things,” she answers, words dripping with her usual sarcasm. It’s one reason he likes her so much. “But I’m sure you have some.”

“I’ll have to dig deep,” he replies, just as dryly. She glances up at him with a small smile. He’s noticed that, too. She gives him smiles when she gives others brittle and dissatisfied frowns. Cloud fills with pride when he receives them.

Tifa arrives shortly after, and Cloud is already seated and mulling over past failures and disappointments and how there are too many to choose from. Her appearance makes him break the lead on his mechanical pencil, and he hurriedly pushes out more.

He can write about her. _She_ isn’t the failure, but what happened between them feels like one. It’s always felt like that. She was his first friend in Nibelheim, lost in the tides of new people and experiences and other friendships. Cloud could have tried harder, but he didn’t. He passively let her be taken by the pull of more exciting ventures, and he ignored the yawning distance created between them. He’d been too uncertain about how to manage it. He’d been too scared. He’d felt the distance like an impasse, just like the broken, rickety bridge to Mt. Nibel.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she apologizes to Mrs. Bouchard. Mrs. Bouchard merely raises an eyebrow and hands her the paper. Tifa falters but takes it, glancing over it and frowning. She turns and looks up, immediately finding Cloud and catching his eye. The smile wavers on her face when she tries to make one, and Cloud turns his stare back to the paper.

With mild horror, he realizes he’s written _Tifa_ as the first word of his miniature essay. He vigorously erases it.

“May I sit here?”

Cloud startles, his knee smacking against the bottom of the desk. He looks up to see Tifa standing to his right beside the desk. She’s thumbing the bottom lip of her shirt.

“Uh…” he says. “Ifyou want.”

“Um, okay,” she answers, slipping into the chair. “Thanks.”

She takes out a pencil from her backpack before resting it on the leg of the desk. She stares at the paper and twists the pencil in her hands. When it looks as though she is about to begin, poising her pencil over the lines, she stops and turns to him.

He blinks at the sudden and direct attention, and his heart rate immediately ramps up. He feels his neck prickling, because he’d been staring at her and hadn’t even realized. He shifts in his seat, breaking their eye contact.

“I hate these essays,” she whispers. “They take me forever.”

This makes Cloud smirk.

“Why?” he asks. “Because you’ve never had to write them before?”

“I…” Tifa trails. “I write essays for other classes, but they aren’t as hard as these.”

“These aren’t hard,” Cloud says, glancing up at her before looking back at his paper. “They don’t have to be true. Just make it up.”

He sees her body turn a little out of the corner of his eye. “Is that how you’re able to write them so fast? You make up stuff?”

Cloud shrugs. He thinks about how to answer. Truthfully, he can write them so fast because he’s done the same variation of them over the past few years. He has several responses lined up for these kind of assignments.

“Sorta,” he says, deciding to remain vague. “I take from experiences and…expand.”

She tilts her head, and when he dares to look up, she’s smiling at him.

“Okay, good idea. I’ll try that,” she says. “What are you going to write about?”

He panics momentarily, and his eyes find the erased indentations of her name on his paper.

“Uh…” he says. “Don’t know yet.”

Tifa gently taps her eraser on the desk. Eventually, she whispers under her breath, “I don’t like thinking about my failures.”

Cloud glances up at Mrs. Bouchard, but she doesn’t seem to be paying them any mind. She has a book open, in the middle of flipping a page.

“They find the most uncomfortable topics to make us write about,” he says. “They think it’ll make us grow.”

Tifa gives a soft chuckle. “Mrs. Bouchard really loves her essays.”

Cloud nods, clicking out an unnecessary amount of lead from his pencil. “At least we only have two more days of this.”

“Yeah…” Tifa mumbles. She taps her pencil a few more times. “Hey, um…”

She looks at him. He braves her stare, and he sees her cheeks begin to pink.

“Your, um, your bruise is getting better.”

Cloud unconsciously reaches a hand up to touch the skin around his left eye. “It’s fine.”

“Mitch is, um, still pretty banged up,” she says, smiling a little. “I hear him talk about you at least once a day.”

“He’s pathetic,” Cloud mutters.

Tifa sighs, shaking her head. “He’s alright. He’s just a bit…”

“Thick?” Cloud suggests.

“I was going to say shortsighted, but…that works, too.” She gives him an amused look, and Cloud has to suddenly reposition his cap to avoid fidgeting in his seat.

“I _am_ sorry about last Friday, though,” she continues. “You were right. If I had just minded my business, you wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

“I would have landed myself here some other way,” he says. “Doesn’t matter.”

Tifa tugs at the end of her hair. “You never know. You might not have—“

Mrs. Bouchard loudly clears her throat, glaring at both of them. “This is _detention,_ not social hour. I have not seen either of you write one word. You will have plenty of time to talk later. For now, I request silence and writing,” she says, her words hard and final.

Tifa blushes, turning in her seat quickly and ducking her head. “Sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t be,” Cloud mutters.

After several minutes of half-hearted scribbling, Tifa leans over and places a folded piece of paper on his desk. Cloud blinks at it and looks at her, but she’s busy writing lines.

He unfolds the paper.

_Mrs. Bouchard hates my guts._

Cloud smirks. He writes back.

_No, she doesn’t. She’s always like this._

He glances up at Mrs. Bouchard, and he places the paper back on Tifa’s desk as she turns a page. Tifa writes her response quickly.

 _She likes you, though. She_ SMILES _at you. I didn’t think she could smile until I saw it._

Cloud minutely shakes his head.

_Only because I’ve hung out with her in detention for years._

Tifa makes a chuffing noise at his answer.

_Maybe. But I think she actually likes you._

_I don’t know if that’s a good thing._

_It’s always a good thing when someone likes you._

As Cloud’s thinking of how to respond, Mrs. Bouchard clears her throat loudly again.

“I appreciate you two following my directions of silence and writing, but I cannot have you two passing notes in detention. You only have twenty more minutes. I’m sure you can wait to flirt until you’re outside of this classroom.”

Cloud makes a low choking noise in the back of his throat. His entire body tenses at Mrs. Bouchard’s words, and when he looks up to scowl at her, he’s surprised to find her giving them both a smile. When he glances at Tifa, she’s looking down at her paper, her hair shielding her face from him.

Cloud wants to protest, but the words fail him. Tifa says nothing, either.

Instead, he tries to go back to his assignment on the sheet. He has his second failure left to write, and he glances at Tifa’s hair before looking back at the note she sent him, her handwriting loopy, filled with flowing curves. It is half cursive and half print. The words on her last response prickle at his chest.

 _Tifa Lockhart,_ he writes, inspired by their fleeting interaction. _When I first moved to Nibelheim, she became my first friend. She sat beside me on the old swings across the street from our houses. She didn’t care that I was new. She allowed me to feel like it wasn’t the end of the world. She made me feel like I could belong if I wanted to. She helped me survive elementary school._

_But she’s easy to like. She made new friends in middle school, and before I knew it, we lost touch in high school. We went our separate ways and followed our different interests. We don’t have any classes together, and we haven’t had classes together for years. Childhood was such a long time ago, anyway, so it shouldn’t feel like it matters. It really doesn’t matter, but it’s still a failure. I failed at staying her friend. I failed at keeping up._

_Now, she sits beside me in detention, and I wonder if this will be the beginning of overcoming the failure from childhood._

Cloud stares at what he’s written. It’s the most un-half-assed thing he’s written for a detention prompt in a long time. He has the urge to crumple up the paper and rip it up. It’s…embarrassing. Mrs. Bouchard might not even accept it. It doesn’t even give a true resolution. He flips his pencil over, letting the eraser hover over the last line. It’s so stupid. Does he really believe that? _The beginning of overcoming the failure._ He’s such a joke. Life doesn’t work this way. It never has. Why would it, now?

Because Tifa sat by him again? Because she talked to him and sent him a _note?_

He sneers at himself. The eraser continues to hover. He glances over at her, still hidden by the dark blanket of her hair.

Finally, he sighs. He flips his pencil back so that his lead touches the paper.

 _I want it to be,_ he writes. _I want it to be another beginning._

Cloud looks over his words and tries not to think about them too hard. Nothing like detention and ruminating over failures to really pull out his true feelings. He scoffs and stands, going to hand in his paper.

“Thank you, Cloud,” Mrs. Bouchard says, taking it from him.

“Yep,” he mutters, turning back to go to his seat. Tifa is standing, looking over her paper, too. Her lips are turned into a deeper frown, and when she looks up at him, her cheeks become pink again.

He chooses a different aisle to walk back to his seat, allowing her space between them to reach Mrs. Bouchard without awkward maneuvering around one another. He takes his seat and pulls out his earbuds. They only have a few more minutes, but he feels too vulnerable after that paper to merely sit and do nothing. He sinks into his desk, plugs in his earbuds to his phone and picks out a song. By the time Tifa arrives back to her seat, he’s closed his eyes and swiveled his cap around to shadow his face. He crosses his arms over his chest and pretends to feel unbothered by everything.

Three songs pass through his ears before there is a light tapping against his shoulder. He shifts and opens his eyes, tipping up the lid of his cap. Tifa is sitting on the edge of her chair, one of the straps of her backpack slung over her shoulder. He pulls out his earbuds and glances at the clock, seeing that it’s a minute after 5:00 pm. Mrs. Bouchard is standing up from her desk, shuffling papers together and placing them into her tote bag.

“Detention is over,” Tifa tells him. Cloud nods at her and shoves the cord of his earbuds into his pack, slipping his phone into his pocket.

“Thanks,” he says, standing. She stands, too.

“Sure,” she answers, shrugging the other strap across her shoulder. She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “Um…”

Cloud raises his brows. He realizes she’s actually going to talk to him. More. With more words. He stares at her. She shifts her weight.

“Do you, uh, still live on Brockmore Street?” she asks.

A slow build of panic starts climbing up his throat. “Yeah.”

Tifa brightens substantially at this. She grins. “Would you like to walk home together? I live just across the alley.”

 _I know,_ he almost says, biting his tongue.

“Uh…” Cloud stutters, glancing around the room for some kind of excuse to avoid the question. He can’t think of anything to get out of saying yes. He could easily say _no, I don’t want to walk home with you,_ but he can’t imagine telling her something so negative and so bluntly. She would think he hates her, just like she thinks Mrs. Bouchard hates her—when she clearly doesn’t. Mrs. Bouchard doesn’t truly hate any of the kids. In fact, Cloud’s of the opinion that she might care the most.

Cloud catches Mrs. Bouchard’s eye before she turns to leave the classroom. She gives him a wink and a smile before she steps out into the hallway. Cloud swallows as she does, because now they’re _too_ alone. There isn’t even a picture on the walls to keep them company.

“…okay,” he mumbles, giving a half-shrug. Her reaction is at least three levels too happy for the simple prospect of it. His palms are already beginning to sweat.

“Great,” she says, straightening. “Let’s go.”

Cloud follows her out of the room before they begin to walk side by side down the hall and out the side doors of the school. Their neighborhood is only about five blocks away, and it’s a fifteen minute walk. He tends to take his bike, but he jogged this morning as a warm-up before the time trial.

What a chance happening this turned out to be. Cloud hates how he’s starting to sweat underneath his hoodie. It’s late October, autumn maturing swiftly over the mountain town. Breezes are becoming crisp with gentle, chilly bites against his cheeks, but Cloud doesn’t feel any of it. He feels like it’s eighty degrees with a dewy pall of humidity.

“So what did you write about, today?” she asks once they’re on the sidewalk outside, winding their way down the path of the school zone.

A lump immediately forms in his throat. He clears it.

“I wrote about failing to teach Mitch a lesson,” he states. It’s not untrue. That _was_ the first failure he wrote about. It was mostly facetious and one he thought Mrs. Bouchard would appreciate.

Tifa rounds her head on him, blinking in surprise. “What? Really?”

Cloud can’t help the smug smirk that curls on his face. “Yeah. I wasn’t very serious about it.”

Tifa shakes her head at him. “Will Mrs. Bouchard accept it?”

“She’s accepted everything I’ve turned in so far,” he says, shrugging, though he thinks about his last submission with an ounce of discomfort. “She has a sense of humor about most of it.”

“That surprises me,” Tifa admits. “She doesn’t seem very laid back. She’s so serious.”

“She tries to be,” Cloud says. “Don’t let her scare you. She’s nice.”

Tifa hums at that before she begins to smile. “You know that…how? From all your years of experience with her and detention?”

Cloud looks at the ground, eyes catching on the unpredictable cracks in the sidewalk. “Yeah. She’s been the supervisor for detention for as long as I can remember.”

“Is there a limit to the amount of detentions you can get?” Tifa asks. “Will they be on your school record?”

“I dunno,” Cloud answers honestly. He’s never thought about it. He’s never actually cared to think about it. “I hope not,” he says after a pause. “That would suck.”

A quiet, short laugh expels from her lips, and Cloud nearly trips at the unexpected sound.

“Yes, that _would_ suck,” she says.

They are silent for another block. Tifa sighs a small, little breath before she asks, “Did you go to the game on Friday?”

“Nah,” he says. “Not my thing.”

“Oh…” she says. “We won. You probably knew, but…”

Cloud glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She’s tugging at her shirt again.

“You’ll be pleased to know that Mitch missed two tackles that allowed the other team to score,” she says.

Both of Cloud’s eyebrows raise. “Mitch missed tackles?”

Tifa nods. “He did. He blamed it on his “broken eye”.”

Cloud gives a brief smile. “I’m sure that’s exactly what it was. Maybe he was thinking about Ashley, too. She was probably unimpressed.”

Tifa laughs again. “She was. We didn’t hear the end of it ’til the game was over.”

“Sounds like her,” Cloud mutters.

“How did that all go down, anyway?” Tifa asks, turning to look at him. “Ashley told me she asked you about Mitch, but she didn’t say anything else.” She pauses. “I mean, if you want to tell me. You don’t have to.”

Cloud looks at her and glances away. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he says. “Mitch and I have Government and Economics together. He told half the class he had access to the master key for the test and asked who wanted in. Most of them are on the football team.” He shrugs. “He’d been bragging all week about how he aced it. I asked him whose ass I had to kiss to fix my scores for a scholarship.”

Tifa’s mouth parts. “Cloud! You didn’t say that!”

At her tone, he nearly hunches in on himself. “Uh…yeah, I did.”

“That’s…you’re crazy,” she says, but her words are negated by the smile of disbelief on her face. “Now I get why he doesn’t like you.”

Cloud tuts. “He’s always been so…entitled, I guess. Besides, he does it to himself.”

Tifa sighs, but she acquiesces. “He is pretty full of himself, isn’t he?” She glances at him. “Did Ashley come up to you after that?”

“Yeah,” he says, nearly rolling his eyes at the memory. “She came up to me because she was mad at my accusation. She asked me how I knew he cheated. I told her to look in his backpack, and I guess she did.”

“Oh, I see,” she says softly. “She’s been…very dramatic lately.”

It’s an understatement, but Tifa’s never been mean or judgmental toward anyone, no matter who they are. Her mild agreements with him are shocking, and they send small bouts of warmth through him. He blinks and shakes his head, scowling.

“Yeah. Dramatic.”

They turn onto his street not a minute later, trekking up to his house in no time at all. Cloud expels a breath of relief. It was nowhere near as terrible as he thought it might be.

“Thanks for telling me,” Tifa says. She smiles at him, and Cloud averts his eyes, shrugging.

“Sure.”

“And, um, for walking with me.”

She toes at the curb of his walkway. Cloud shifts his backpack along his shoulder.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, grasping for something else to say. “Maybe tomorrow’s essay won’t be as annoying.”

She smiles. “Yeah, hopefully not.”

They look at each other.

“Well…” he mumbles.

“I…” she says, both of them talking at the same time. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. You go.”

He readjusts his cap, shifting his weight.

“N-nothing, just uh, guess I’ll see you later,” he finishes, and he wants to wince at how lame it sounds as he says it.

She doesn’t seem to notice, smiling at him all the while. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” She waves. “Bye, Cloud.”

She turns to follow the sidewalk cutting between the rows of houses, following the trail toward her house. Cloud watches her until she’s out of sight, unlocking his front door and entering.

His mother immediately greets him, a bemused smile on her face as she fills up a pot of water at the kitchen sink, scents of the lasagna dinner already permeating the air.

“Hi, sweetheart. Was that Tifa Lockhart I saw just now?” she asks, gesturing toward the window looking out to the pathway. “Wow, I haven’t seen her in so long! I didn’t think you two talked anymore.”

“We don’t,” he says, slipping around the open kitchen to the staircase along the side of the hall. “Just…ran into each other.”

“Hm, I see. How has she been?”

“Uh, fine,” he says, trudging up the stairs and hoping his mom will stop asking questions.

“How was your run?” she calls as he disappears to his room. “Did you beat your time?”

“Not today,” he says. “I’ll do better next week!”

He closes his door and sits at his desk. He pulls out his drawing notebook from his backpack and grabs a few of his shading pencils. They cost a small fortune, and he was floored when his mother bought them for his last birthday. It was the best present he had gotten in a long time—even though it isn’t very hard to beat the dull excitement of opening up new socks and underwear every year.

“You’re so good at drawing, Cloud. It always makes you so happy. I want you to follow that happiness,” his mother had told him. He had been speechless. His mother had laughed. “Where’s your clever comeback?”

Cloud had taken a deep breath. “I…don’t have one.” He looked up at her, holding the package close to his chest. “Thank you, Mom.”

She merely smiled before tugging him into a hug. “Of course, darling.”

Nearly every day since he received them, he’s drawn something as soon as he gets home. It’s never anything big. There are no earth shattering endeavors. It’s just something he’s imagined or seen, like a scene at school or a person’s expression or even a feeling.

It’s his own type of journal. He documents his life with different types of lines and squiggles and drawings. Once, he’d been ashamed of it. He hid it from his mother. He’d never take his notebook to classes, anymore, for fear he’d be caught with it. He’d only draw in the depths of night, when no other soul could be awake or around or ask him what he was doing.

Now, he doesn’t mind as much. He avoids people when he takes it out at school, if the itch is too intense or beguiling. He doesn’t care if they see him in the action of drawing, but he _does_ care if they make fun of him. There was a time when he couldn’t handle it. Some of the other boys would jeer at him or tear his journal away and look at his once mediocre and painfully crafted drawings, determining with their sharp fourteen-year-old eyes and fully fleshed out judgment of art that his were no good pieces of trash. _Quit while you’re ahead, Strife!_

It didn’t help that Cloud wasn’t well-liked. It also didn’t help that Cloud was still skinny and short, easily towered over by the other boys and pitied for having interests outside the realm of sports. His inability to communicate with others was another nail in the coffin, and he decided early on that the effort to make friends wasn’t worth the exhaustion or the disappointment when they failed.

After Tifa had entered into a path he couldn’t follow, he had tried to find his own.

And he did. He learned how to stand up for himself. He learned how to tell kids to back the fuck off when they couldn’t fathom trying to understand him. Kids were vicious and mean, especially the ones who had never been challenged a day in their life. _Especially_ when personalities didn’t align.

Cliques formed, as they always did. Goth and jock, preppies and the rich and the poor. The gangs. The theater kids. The band kids. The nerds. The Student Council. Wutai Club.

Cloud hopped around, but nothing really seemed to stick. Then he realized he was content without being part of stereotypes or a group that defined him. He was simply Cloud, and he liked art and running and music, and he didn’t care for getting to know anyone because they didn’t care about getting to know him.

This seemed to place him with the other outcasts, but it didn’t bother him. He did his own thing and didn’t have to care about the feelings of others. He could go where he wanted and do what he wanted, and he was perfect with that.

As he sits at his desk, he labels a clean sheet of paper with the date. _Oct. 16, 0004,_ he writes in the top corner. He stares at the pristine, unblemished white of the sheet, and it is hard for him to explain how he is always excited by the prospect of something new to be created. His fingers burn with readiness, and they become restless with the itch to _make._

He thinks about what he wants to draw. He imagines the past day, thinking about the run in the morning and thinking about Tifa in the afternoon.

He takes a breath and releases it, choosing a pencil. He cuts the paper in half with a line, utilizing a ruler for precision.

On the left, he draws a feeling. He draws a lump in a throat and x’s for eyes and cuts in the palms of the hands. At the top, he writes _Expectation._

On the right, he draws the same throat with the same lump, but he draws sweating palms and bright, clear eyes. He labels this one _Reality._

In the bottom corner, he titles it _Walking Home._

By the time he finishes, his mother calls him downstairs for dinner.


	2. Another Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm finally back with a chapter to something. Thank you all for your patience and your lovely comments and, as always, your support. Never ceases to amaze me. I love y'all very much.
> 
> Thanks is in order to Somebodys_Nightmare, for yet again, putting up with my ridiculousness and insanity. She's the greatest human. 
> 
> Happy reading. I hope you guys enjoy this one. <3

Thursday’s detention carries on much like Wednesday’s. Tifa takes her seat beside Cloud. She smiles at him. He looks at her for a few seconds longer than he has been. She grumbles over the prompt of the day, which is: “Describe when you learned a skill and how you’ve developed it over time.”

It’s not nearly as difficult to begin this next one, but grumbling about it somehow makes the action of writing it a little easier.

“What are you going to write?” she whispers. 

Cloud tilts his head at the paper. “Uh, I’m going to write about...drawing.”

Tifa’s curiosity spikes exponentially at his words. “That’s so cool. Do you draw very often?”

Cloud shifts in his seat. “When I can.”

Tifa glances up at Mrs. Bouchard and catches her eye. She bites her lip and turns to Cloud for a moment. “Can I ask about it after?”

Cloud readjusts his cap, turning it so that the lid hovers over his forehead. “I guess.”

His shoulders raise to his ears as he leans over the paper and begins writing. His antics make her smile. He’s so uncaring in the hallways when faced with the boys he doesn’t like or guys like Mitch, who he can’t care to get along with. He’s different when he talks to her. When he does, he evades her eyes for extended periods of time. He likes to talk _away_ from her rather than _toward_ her. Nothing like how blunt and cutting he is to Mitch, nearly snarling and growling into his face. He seems almost timid, perhaps shy, and Tifa remembers walking with him the day before. It had been simple and relaxed. It was nothing like she had expected. He kept his hands in his hoodie pocket. He glanced at her then glanced away. It was more than she was hoping.

And today, when she smiled at him, he didn’t scowl or grimace. He merely stared at her smile before averting his gaze, and she thought she spied a blush across his cheekbones.

She thinks about how he was when they were children. He had been bashful back then. His voice had been soft and his face serene. He’d frown more than smile, but when he d _id_ smile it had always felt like a triumph. 

Tifa clicks out lead from her pencil and begins to write about piano. She began at five years old with her lessons, using her mother’s grand forte. It had always been expected—she can’t even remember having a choice about playing, but it’s now been part of her so long, she can’t imagine life without it.

She discusses her mother teaching her first, taking her through lessons and grade books, different levels from easy to intermediate before she passed away. Her father, though it had been hard, hired another teacher a year later, but Tifa had been nine. She had been occasionally overwhelmed by the clutches of melancholy and stubbornness. _You’re not as good as my mama,_ she had told one teacher, so honestly and bluntly as only children can be. _I don’t like how you teach me._

They went through a few others, and by the time Tifa was twelve, she thought she could do it on her own. She bought the books to advance her lessons. She was overambitious in some of her endeavors, believing at times that she was better than she was. By fourteen, she’d gone back to one of her old instructors and began to practice for recitals. Eventually, she would be recruited to play for morning mass at the church.

She isn’t as good as her mother, and she isn’t sure if she ever will be, but she continues to challenge herself when she can. She’ll have a lesson or two each month to make sure she is progressing with her musical abilities and staying nuanced. She plays with the orchestra at school, too, and she’ll practice afterhours when closer to performances. She plays at home, but she’s seen how sad it can make her father. He always tells her how beautiful her music is, how lovely and graceful. But she can tell he struggles. He’s been struggling ever since Mom passed away.

Tifa writes and writes and writes. She runs out of room on the front, so she continues and finishes on the back, hoping that Mrs. Bouchard doesn’t mind. 

“That’s a novel,” Cloud states, sliding back into his seat from turning in his own paper. 

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I got carried away,” she says, feeling a little shocked at his attention. She flips over her paper, glancing over her words. She suddenly feels unsure about the long-windedness of her answer before she sighs and tells herself not to care. 

“What’d you write about?” he asks. 

Tifa looks at him. He’s slouching in the chair, his hair pushed down along his temples. The rest falls to his chin, his eyes shadowed by his cap. 

“Piano,” she says, smiling. “Music. I really enjoy music.”

He looks at her for a few seconds longer before he glances back at his desk. “I remember that. You took lessons.”

“Yes,” she says, tilting her head in surprise. “I did. I still do sometimes, but not as often.”

Mrs. Bouchard clears her throat. “Are you finished with your assignment, Tifa?”

Tifa straightens in her seat, going to stand. “O-oh, yes, Mrs. Bouchard,” she answers, grabbing her paper and walking to the front of the room. “I’m sorry. I wrote a bit more than I was supposed to.”

“That is quite alright, dear,” she says, taking the assignment from her. “That means you actually liked this prompt, didn’t you?” She flicks her gaze over Tifa’s shoulder. “And I believe I know you enough, Cloud, to say that you enjoyed this one as well.”

Cloud shrugs noncommittally. “ _Enjoyed_ is a bit strong. More like _tolerated_.”

“Mm,” Mrs. Bouchard hums, shaking her head. “Sure. But yes, this is just fine, Tifa.”

For the first time, Tifa feels as though Mrs. Bouchard might, in fact, not hate her guts. 

When Tifa sits back in her seat, she’s pleased to see that Cloud only has an earbud in his left ear. The right, on her side, is open and available, daring her to ask him one of her questions. He has a slim journal open in front of him, and he seems to be drawing aimless lines.

Her heart thumps, and she takes a settling breath. She reaches into her bag to pull out a notebook, but she doesn’t have any intention to do homework. She bites the inside of her lip, glancing at Cloud.

“Um...” she starts, gaining his attention. “How did you remember I took lessons?”

Cloud raises a brow, but he continues to scratch against his paper. “I don’t know. You’d always tell me you had to go home to play piano with your _dumb_ teacher.” 

Tifa blinks, thinking back to when they’d hang out and spend so much time together. Out of all the scenes that flash in her mind, she can’t quite come up with that one.

“I don’t remember that,” she admits.

Cloud smirks, looking up at her. “Just one of those things. I’d...stay on the swing and you’d stomp home.”

Tifa sighs, frowning. “I can’t believe I don’t remember that.”

Cloud shrugs, turning away. “Some things we forget.”

At that, Tifa furrows her brow, going through all the other snapshots of time. She remembers eating dinners at his house. She remembers Claudia Strife cleaning up a scrape on her elbow when she fell during an aggressive game of tag, dragging Cloud along with her and the other neighborhood kids. She even remembers bringing Cloud to her room and playing with her action figures and board games. 

She doesn’t remember complaining about piano to him. Then again, the years after her mother passed have become a heavy blur in her mind. Cloud was right in the middle of that blur, his body crystal clear against the superficial details in the background. Sometimes, she can’t even remember how her father interacted with her during her later elementary days. 

It makes her wonder what memories Cloud keeps in comparison to hers. Looking at the profile of his face, she is too intimidated to ask something so personal. 

“I remember when we climbed the oak tree in my backyard,” she says. “I slipped and fell and thought I had to have died.”

Cloud taps his pencil. “Yeah. I remember that.”

“My dad got so mad at us. He wanted to kill me after he made sure I was okay,” she says faintly, smiling and shaking her head. 

“Yeah...” Cloud says. “That was when he told me to never come back or he’d skin me alive.”

Tifa rolls her eyes. “As if you had anything to do with me missing the branch.”

Cloud shrugs a little. “He had reason to be angry. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Sure, but it wasn’t. He overreacts all the time,” Tifa says, and she feels instantly antsy talking about her father. “But anyway, um, drawing,” she continues, changing topics. “I didn’t know you liked drawing.”

Under his breath, he says, “Well, we haven’t talked in years. You wouldn’t know that.”

His words claw at her stomach. “Yeah...you’re right.” Her eyebrows pinch and she twists her pencil around her fingers. “I...you know, I wish that didn’t happen. How we...drifted.” She feels the pulse in her neck, and she swallows. She stares at the page of her notebook, opened to a random, insignificant lesson dated back a few days ago. “I’m sorry about not keeping up with you and...not talking to you. We’re still neighbors, but it didn’t help us keep contact over the years, did it?”

Cloud’s pencil stills on his paper. “It...happens,” he says, his voice soft. “We did different things. We got busy. You couldn’t help that.”

Tifa turns to look at him, but she can’t catch his eye. “That doesn’t matter, though. You make time for your friends.”

At that, Cloud swivels his head up. “It was me, too, Tifa. I didn’t keep up with you.”

She takes a breath. “I’m still sorry, Cloud.”

He simply shrugs, his lips quirking. “We’re here, now, right?”

Tifa maintains his stare, and she takes in fully what he looks like, now. His eyes are overshadowed by the cap, but they are lively. She remembers that from the previous day, glinting in the waning sunlight. His jaw is precise, as if created by an algebraic formula. Gone is the softness of preadolescence that she remembers most prominently. His lips are thin and pink, and his mouth is in a thoughtful frown. His body is hidden underneath his hoodie and his jeans, beat up sneakers encasing his feet. He is a mystery wrapped up in baggy clothes. 

He still intimidates her, and her heart races agitatedly as they sit here and look at each other. She feels the heat from her blood disperse into her face and around her skull, but she is not as fearful as she had been a mere five days ago. She continues to long for what was lost, but she feels the bright, iridescent burn of potential, on the cusp of forming something again. 

He is not ignoring her or evading her words and questions, and she is encouraged by it. She smiles. 

“Yeah. We’re here.”

His eyes lower to her lips. He turns away from her and flicks his pencil for a second. He opens his mouth before closing it, clearing his throat lightly. “So, uh, drawing. I’ve…been drawing since eighth grade, I think.”

Tifa blinks, her mouth parting. “Really? That long?”

“...yeah,” he says. “Gave me something to do.”

Tifa glances at his paper, but she can’t see much of anything. She inches a little forward. 

“You must be so good at it, now,” she says. “What kinds of things do you draw?”

His cheeks begin to darken, and he shifts. “Anything, really.”

“Anything?” she asks. “So, people? Animals?” 

“Yeah, I draw those,” he says.

She tilts her head. She can’t tell if he’s uncomfortable or embarrassed or neither or both. 

“Landscapes?”

“...sometimes.”

“People from school? Those still life portraits you always see those famous artists drawing?” 

“Uh…I stage things for practice, but not all the time.”

“Wow,” she says before she brightens, thinking of something. “Do you draw comics?”

Cloud blinks at her. “Uh...no, I haven’t tried those before.”

She shakes her head. “Oh, that’s okay, I was just curious. What’s your favorite thing to draw?”

Cloud seems to be taken aback by her interest. Tifa readjusts in her seat, edging slightly away from him. She smiles sheepishly. “Uh, sorry, I just think it’s so…”

She wants to say _intriguing_ and _exciting._ She’s never been able to draw anything, and she doesn’t know anyone else who cares much for art except for doodling on shoes or the corners of notebooks. 

“…cool,” she finishes, repeating herself from before.

Cloud’s blush deepens. “Er...I don’t really have a favorite thing.”

Tifa raises her brows. “You don’t?”

He shrugs a little. “I just...draw what I feel like.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding. “I see. I know what you mean. Sometimes with piano, I only want to play certain songs that I feel like, too.”

Cloud palms the back of his neck. “Yeah...it’s like that.”

Mrs. Bouchard interrupts them, signaling the end of detention. Tifa is so surprised at the passing of the hour that she exclaims. 

“Huh, that went so quickly today.” She turns to Cloud. “You want to, um, walk home together again?”

Cloud slings his backpack over his shoulder. “That’s fine, Tifa.”

_His voice,_ she thinks. That’s something she’s still taking in, too. His voice is deeper—of course it’s deeper. He’s older. But it still takes her getting used to it, as quiet and unobtrusive as it is. It’s still boyish, but it is much more masculine, and as her name rolls off his tongue, her shoulder blades pinch together as though a hand grazes her back.

They walk out of school, finding the same sidewalk path they had the day prior. Silence settles over them for a block of walking, their feet padding over concrete. Tifa selects one of her questions, trying to tell herself that Cloud is just another boy from school—because he is.

“So,” she says, smiling. “Midgar Soldiers, huh?”

Cloud looks at her. “What?”

“Your cap,” she points. “You wear it every day.”

He reaches up, tipping it enough so that she can admire the vibrancy of his eyes. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “They’re my favorite team—they _were_ my favorite team,” he corrects. “I, uh, like Sephiroth.”

“Sephiroth?” Tifa says. “He’s a quarterback, right?”

“Yeah. He’s one of the best in the league,” Cloud says. “But he wanted too much money. They traded him to Northern Crater a few weeks ago.”

His tone does not sound pleased. “Oh, that’s a bummer.”

“It’s stupid,” he mutters. “They knew what would happen if they lost him. Midgar is probably the greediest organization in the league, so it doesn’t make sense that they didn’t pay him. They must be having some kind of financial problems.”

Tifa blinks before laughing lightly. “I didn’t know you liked football. As much as you hate the players at school…”

He stares at the sidewalk, shrugging. “Uh, yeah. I like it. It’s fun to watch.”

“Why don’t you come to our games? They’re fun to watch, too,” she says.

“I tend to root for the other team if I go,” Cloud says.

Tifa laughs again. “I can see you doing that, Cloud.” She looks at him. “So you _have_ gone to our games before.”

“A few times,” he says, and he hesitates. His hand grips harder on his backpack strap. “I don’t...uh, I don’t really like crowds.”

“Oh,” Tifa says, nodding. “Are they too...overwhelming?”

Cloud seems to struggle with his answer. “Something like that. I’ve never liked being around...a lot of people.”

“That’s okay,” she says. “It’s not for everyone.”

Cloud catches her eye, and his face slackens with surprise. “Uh...yeah. Right. Thanks.”

Tifa gives him a bemused look. “Why are you thanking me?”

He frowns, pinching his lips together. His shoulders round a little more. “I dunno. Just, uh...it’s nice that you understand.”

“Oh. Of course, Cloud,” she says. “You shouldn’t feel like it’s a bad thing. I don’t even know if I would go to the games if I didn’t have to be there.”

Cloud looks at her with a skeptical glance. “You don’t think so?”

She never admits it aloud, but some evenings she would love to stay home. She would love to read a book she would like rather than a school assignment. She would love to play her favorite songs on the piano instead of trudging through the ones she _must._

There is always someone to please—her father, her friends, her teachers. 

“I don’t know,” she begins. “I’ve been to so many. The energy is fun, and I love performing our cheers and the flips, but...” she shrugs. “I don’t know what it’s like to just…stay home. I’m not even sure what it’s like to just watch the game.” She smiles at a thought. “Half the time, I think everyone goes to gossip and doesn’t care about if we win or lose.”

Cloud smirks at that. “I bet that’s true. That or—“ he cuts himself off. 

“What?”

“Uh, they don’t pay attention. Sometimes they sneak in liquor.”

“That’s true?” Tifa asks, her mouth gaping a little. “I always heard it was a rumor but I never knew for sure.”

“Some of the delinquents are creative,” he mumbles. 

Tifa tilts her head to drill him with a stare. “Are you one of those delinquents?”

He scoffs. “I only get into fights and detention. My mom would kill me if I was caught with alcohol.”

This, for whatever reason, pleases Tifa. She smiles, lightly saying, “There are rumors about you, too, you know.”

Cloud grimaces. “Of course there are.”

“Any guesses about them?” 

Cloud turns his head away. “I dunno. Am I a drug dealer?”

“You only sell the occasional cigarette,” she answers. “And a minute ago, you had secret access to alcohol.”

It takes a few seconds for Cloud to respond. “How’d it get out that I sell cigarettes?” 

Tifa’s eyes widen before Cloud glances at her again, a ghost of a smirk on his face. She blinks three times before she realizes he’s being sarcastic. She grins at him.

“It must have been the time you were caught on the slab,” Tifa says, teasing.

“Oh, yeah, the slab,” he says. “I hung out there for a week. It’s nothing interesting.”

Curiosity piqued again, Tifa tugs at the end of her hair. “So, what do you do there?”

Cloud’s lips quirk. “Eat lunch. Some kids even talk to each other. Some brought chalk or did homework.”

Tifa purses her lips but tries not to smile. “Oh, like _normal_ kids. Weird.”

“You should go one day and see for yourself,” he tells her. “It isn’t very…interesting, but it’s different.”

Tifa hates how everything in her body immediately refuses the notion. She is biased against the slab beyond repair, but the simple way Cloud explains it makes her want to relearn what she thought about it before. 

“Maybe one day,” she relents.

“They might wonder what you’re doing there, but that’s about it,” he says. “It gets a bad rap, but it’s just another place. Not everyone smokes.”

Tifa hums. “I’ll have to remember that,” she says, and she’s disappointed that they are coming up to their houses. Time has suddenly started to move too quickly. 

As they find the dividing sidewalk pathway that leads to her house, Tifa takes a breath and glances up at him. He’s already looking at her, and she loses her words for a moment. 

“I, um,” she stutters. “Thanks. Again. For walking with me.”

“Yeah. Sure,” he says. They stand facing each other. Tifa runs a thumb along the inside of her forearm, hesitating.

“So—I know you hate the football games, but we have another home game tomorrow night if…if you’re at all interested,” she says. “No pressure, obviously. I just…wanted to invite you. The next week we have a bye, and the next we’re out of town.”

“Uh…alright,” he answers. “I’ll think about it.”

It’s as good an answer as she could have possibly hoped for. She feels that flare of potential in her throat from earlier, and she beams up at him. 

“We play one of the best teams in the region. Gongaga. We’ll probably lose,” she says.

Cloud raises a brow at her. He seems amused. “Tempting.”

“Who knows? It might inspire you to draw something. I mean, if you get inspired by that kind of thing,” she says, her nerves getting the best of her. She always blurts words when she’s anxious or excited. She bites her tongue but is encouraged when he doesn’t look away. 

“If Mitch misses a tackle, I’d have to journal it,” he says. 

Tifa laughs. “You should draw him with a broken eye. I’m sure you could find someone who’d pay good money for it.”

“Yeah. Or make a ton of copies and fill up his locker with them,” he says, and he sounds serious.

“Cloud!” she exclaims. “That would be so mean!”

He only shrugs, but half of his mouth is turned up in a smile. She can’t remember the last time she’s seen it. 

“Only a little mean.”

She shakes her head, but she can’t help her growing amusement. “I guess you could title it _moron.”_

Cloud’s half-smile remains. Tifa stares at it. 

“Good idea. I’ll have to remember that,” he says.

She feels an untimely blush begin to heat her face. She quickly shakes her head in a vain attempt to get rid of it. 

“Anyway, I’m gonna head home. Only one more day of torture, right?” she asks.

His smile fades. “Yeah. One more day. See you,” he says.

She immediately feels like she made a mistake with her words. “See you tomorrow,” she says in farewell, slowly turning and heading up the incline. She glances back when she’s halfway, but Cloud is already gone. 

She sighs, feeling the beginnings of a knot twist in her stomach. 

He makes her feel so nervous, as if one word from her will ruin everything. But he also makes her feel a strange calm, as if the words don’t matter one way or another.

A nervous calm. 

It doesn’t make sense. 

As she greets her dad with a kiss on the cheek and climbs up her stairs to her bedroom, Tifa finally realizes the meaning of a contradiction. It’s the way that the images of her interaction with Cloud replay in a rapid succession of scenes, sprinting across her eyes.

And how, unrelentingly, that nervous calm wages war in her heart.

* * *

Cloud finds himself drawing a lot of lines.

The lines turn out to be hair.

The hair becomes attached to a skull, and it flows over shoulders and down a back. Halfway into drawing Tifa, Cloud pauses. He scoffs at himself. What the hell is he _doing?_

He hasn’t drawn her in years. He’s talked to her all of, what? Forty-five minutes? Sixty? Is that really the length of time it had taken for the wonder to come back?

He glances up at the closed blinds over his bedroom window.

_Not even that,_ he thinks. He rolls his eyes and shoves himself away from his desk. He goes downstairs to eat dinner, but it does nothing to clear his mind. When he comes back to his room with the paper and the silhouette of her face staring back at him, he feels undeniably frustrated.

_Only one more day of torture, right?_

One more day, he thinks, and then what?

It might turn out to be a blip in their regularly scheduled lives. It might not be a beginning and merely an interlude—a walk down memory lane and nothing more. It’s all up to him, and it’s up to Tifa, too. Once detention is over, they will travel out of its bubble and back to their own respective circles. Cloud’s stomach twists at the thought, the disappointment already creeping into him. He sighs and sits in his desk chair, hand hovering above the different pencils. He chooses one with heavier, darker graphite, and while he hangs onto the potential disappointment tugging inside of him, he outlines the thick rim of Tifa’s eyes. He thinks about how her gaze looked when she asked him to the game tomorrow evening. They were wide and shy and hopeful, shining like they always are, and bordered with a smile.

As he finishes the rest of her face, trying his best to recreate her how he envisions, he contemplates his answer to her question. The longer he stares at the Tifa Lockhart on his desk, memorialized on the once pristine, white sheet of drawing paper, the more and more he begins to waver.

* * *

The next day, as Cloud sits in his self-designated seat in detention, he has a strange, increasingly amplified bout of nerves. He has to adjust his cap more than strictly necessary. He begins to feel a bit hotter underneath his trusty hoodie.

He can’t stop staring at the prompt. He sighs at it.

It reads: “Describe a promise you made and how you have either kept it or broken it.”

Cloud glances up and glares at Mrs. Bouchard until she catches his eye. She merely smiles at him, as if she _knows_ the turmoil she’s created.

Because it’s not like she _could_ know. There’s no way she could possibly know how much this stupid, tiny, ridiculous prompt itches at his skin like a dozen mosquito bites. She can’t know how much it bothers him.

And it’s not like the promise was anything special. It wasn’t even serious. It’s just…stayed with him, that’s all.

_We’ll be friends forever, right? Pinky promise!_

They had been on the swing set, again. It was at _least_ five years ago, and he didn’t think anything of it at the time. It had merely made him happy. He remembers the childlike joy, in the moment, thinking nothing could tear them apart. It was as simple as that. She was his best friend, and his only friend in the town, and they’d be together forever.

Until, of course, they weren’t.

It will be his second prompt about her. This also makes him nervous. Mrs. Bouchard reads all of these things—he knows she does. Mrs. Bouchard isn’t the kind to give papers a passing glance, especially the ones from detention.

He holds back a groan. He should just make something up. It’s easy. He could write something about his mother.

_Once, I promised my mom I’d do my best in school. I broke it. I’ll never live up to it because I don’t want to. School is stupid. The end._

Yeah, Mrs. Bouchard would enjoy _that_ one.

Cloud hears Tifa’s pencil scribbling across her page. He watches her for a moment. She writes quickly, now. The first two days, she struggled, but now she begins without much pause. She’s already halfway down the page. Cloud stares at his, not having started.

Sitting beside Tifa makes it hard to ignore everything about their past life together. Cloud thinks about a lot of bullshit he can write on his paper, discussing how he’s let his mother down time and again by being a delinquent and by never showing her that he can get along with others.

Cloud doesn’t like thinking about this, either.

Has he ever made a promise he’s kept? With the prompt staring back up at him, he can’t think of one.

_Fuck it,_ he thinks, clicking out more lead from his pencil. It’s the last day of torture. Might as well go out with an incredibly torturous bang, too.

_The first promise I can remember making was when I was thirteen. I’m sure I’ve made more than that, but this one sticks in my mind because it mattered a little more to me._

_Tifa and I used to be good friends back then. We played on the swing sets and ate dinner at each other’s houses. We’d play board games and try to be on each other’s teams during recess._

_She always dragged me into the things I’d never do myself, like jumping into pick up soccer games or playing tag or hanging out with the other kids. I’ve never been very good at talking or making friends, and she tried to help me with that. I don’t know why. I always thought she just wanted me to have more friends besides her. Sometimes, I wonder if I had been a burden to her. She had other friends, and I only had her. Did she feel bad for me? Honestly, I wouldn’t blame her. I would have wanted me to stop following_ _me_ _around, too._

_If not, I wonder why else she tried. I’m sure this would be a great time to analyze this like one of those literature reviews for English class. Maybe I could tie this in with Tifa, at twelve years old, wanting me to grow. I could make this essay_ _really_ _good by saying that true friends push your limits and make you want to chase that growth. But life isn’t a book. I was not thinking about character growth when I was thirteen. I was not thinking about changing my ways. I’m mostly writing this for you, Mrs. Bouchard. I know you enjoy this kind of stuff._

_Anyway, back to the promise. I broke it less than a year after we made it. Once middle school started, we saw each other a few times. It didn’t last. We got distracted by other things—sports, classes, whatever else. I can’t remember how it really happened, just that it did. Maybe it takes both people to break a promise, but I certainly didn’t even try to keep it._

_The last thing I remember was asking her if she wanted to get ice cream after school with me. She said she already had plans that afternoon, but we could go some other time. After that, it was over. I felt it happen. I saw her hang out with her other friends, and I knew I had nothing I could offer her that she didn’t already get from them._

_So, yeah. I broke it. It wasn’t her. I stayed away. I regret it, sometimes, and I wonder if school would have been better with her in it. Probably more tolerable. I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything._

_Regardless,_

Cloud pauses, glancing over what he wrote. He grimaces and sighs, knowing it sounds like the sissiest thing he’s ever written. Grumbling he decides to finish it. _Torture,_ he thinks.

_Regardless, thanks for the trip down memory lane, Mrs. Bouchard. I really_ _love_ _doing these prompts, and I can’t wait for the next detention. I’m sure the next prompts will be just as brilliant as these._

Cloud stands up and walks the front of the room, handing over his essay to Mrs. Bouchard. He gives her a false grin. She raises her eyebrow at him, her bun looking more severe than usual. Then he turns on his heel and walks back to his seat. Tifa is still writing, and Cloud leans forward to rummage around his backpack, pulling out his earbuds. He’s beginning to feel a little bit prickly, again. The nerves have dulled after writing, but now he’s thinking about the time he asked her to get ice cream with him, and the image won’t leave his mind. He remembers the disappointment he felt, and he remembers the hope he still had. It was before he started drawing and before the bullying—potentially, he guesses, before the point of no return. 

He pops an earbud in and scrolls through his music. He chooses one at random but continues to scroll. Soon, Tifa finishes her entry, and she turns it in. As she walks back down the aisle, Cloud makes the mistake of looking up at her. She catches his eye and beams at him. He swallows and glances back at his phone. 

“What did you end up writing about?” Tifa asks as she takes her seat. 

Cloud immediately feels the heat build in his cheeks. 

“Er…” he stumbles, thinking of anything, _anything_ , but the truth. “I, uh, wrote about something from…a long time ago.”

His evasion is weak, but Tifa doesn’t seem to mind it. She only frowns slightly, opening her mouth to reply. Cloud quickly takes the initiative to ask, “What about you?”

“Oh, I, um,” she starts, glancing back to her desk and pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I actually…well, this is going to sound very silly, but…” 

She peeks up at him, and her hands begin to tug at the hem of her shirt. 

“Do you…do you remember when he made a promise? A long time ago?” she asks.

Cloud’s throat immediately turns into a desert. “Uh…y-yeah,” he croaks. 

“We said we’d be friends forever?” she says. “I…well, I wrote about that.”

“You did?” his says, and he cringes at how his voice keeps cracking. 

“I think I was inspired by us being together again in here,” she says, shrugging a little. She smiles. “Brought back the memories, you know?”

Cloud feels like his insides are all tying into several thousand knots. His hand tightens on his phone. 

“Uh…yeah. Yeah, it has,” he mumbles. He takes off his cap and runs his other hand through his hair. _Now or never,_ he thinks. “I…uh, I wrote about the same thing.”

“You did?” Tifa says, her voice astonished. “Seriously?”

He smirks at her reaction. “Yeah. Weird, right?”

“Very,” she says, slowly shaking her head. Her eyes begin to shine with excitement. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

Cloud blinks. “I can’t believe _you_ remember that.”

“Of course I do, Cloud,” she says. “You were my best friend.”

She says it so easily. Cloud feels like he’s been punched by Mitch’s meaty fist, right in his solar plexus. He hadn’t thought it mattered to her. At all. How could it have meant anything? 

He stares at her. Her brows pinch, and her mouth quirks in an uncertain smile. 

“I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but…that’s what I think about,” she says. 

He continues to stare at her before he realizes he’s staring, then he begins blushing before he turns his gaze away to his desk. There is a deeply embedded pen scratch in the top right corner. He concentrates on that. 

“Yeah, I, uh…” he tries. He clears his throat. “ I remember we made that promise on the swing sets,” Cloud says.

Tifa nods. “Yes! We used our pinkies and everything.”

Cloud rubs the back of his neck. “Didn’t last very long, though.”

Tifa bites her lip. “No...but it was a good memory. Most things don’t last when you’re young, anyway.”

“Nah,” Cloud says wryly. “They don’t.”

They are silent for a while. Tifa turns in her seat eventually, looking at him.

“How did you say we broke it?” she asks. “In your essay.”

Cloud is surprised so much by the question that he blurts, “I broke it. Not you.”

Tifa frowns before she smiles. “Of course you’d say that.” She laughs a little. “I said _I_ broke it.”

Cloud raises a brow. “But you didn’t.”

“I did!” Tifa shakes her head. “I just... lost track of everything.”

Cloud shrugs. “Yeah, well, so did I.”

“Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, won’t we?” she asks. He glances up at her, and she smiles at him.

“Guess so,” he answers.

Loud footsteps in the hall cut off their conversation. Cloud looks up at the doorway to see Coach Wallace hunkering down to enter the classroom. His figure has always been so bulky, as though he’s too big for normal human proportions.

“Yo, Marle,” he starts, but upon seeing Cloud and Tifa, he clears his throat. “Uh, I mean, Mrs. Bouchard. I need to discuss a matter with ya.”

Mrs. Bouchard slips her glasses off her nose, setting them on her desk. “Yes, Coach Wallace?”

“Can I speak to ya in private?” he asks, eyeing Cloud and Tifa.

Mrs. Bouchard sighs. “If this is about Mr. Alexander, I believe both of his classmates deserve to know. They are here because of his actions, as well.”

Coach Wallace grumbles for a moment. “Yeah, yeah, alright. We’ve got a bye next week. We’ll still have practice, but I think Mitch would benefit a lot more from having detention. I’ve done what I can with his sorry ass. Uh, I mean, butt.” He glances at Cloud and Tifa again. Cloud smirks. Tifa bites her lip and tries not to smile. “Think he needs a woman’s touch, now.”

“They tend to need one,” Mrs. Bouchard says, voice rich in knowing. “Thank you, Coach Wallace. I will be happy to discipline him here.”

Coach Wallace nods and pats a hand on the top of his head, looking awkward.

“Great. Uh, y’all have a good day, kids.”

With that, he shows himself out. Mrs. Bouchard quirks her mouth. She glances over to both of them across the room.

“Well, Cloud, it seems you will have your wish. And you don’t even have to spend time with him.”

Cloud matches her amused smile. “Maybe there’s justice after all.”

Tifa chuckles beside him. “I guess you were right, Cloud. The push-ups weren’t enough.”

“Yeah, I guess not,” he says, still smiling.

Tifa’s eyes linger on him before she glances away, and Cloud realizes he’s not as nervous as he had been before.

Once they’re dismissed, Mrs. Bouchard asks to speak with Cloud before he leaves. Tifa hesitates by the doorway.

“I have to head to the field to warm up with the team,” she says. “Will I see you at the game?”

Cloud can feel Mrs. Bouchard staring at the side of this face. He burns up underneath their attention. His tongue twists, and he still doesn’t have an answer.

“Uh...you might,” he states, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket. “Good luck.”

Tifa’s shoulders settle. She curls her fingers around the straps of her backpack.

“Okay. Thanks. Bye, Cloud.”

She turns and makes her way out of the room. Cloud regrets his words immediately. He’s reminded of the ice cream, again, but it’s not the same. He wouldn’t be hanging out with her at the game, anyway.

He directs his gaze to Mrs. Bouchard, who is giving him a look with pursed lips and pinched eyes. It’s the same look his mother gives him when he doesn’t finish his chores.

“Uh, what did you want to speak to me about?” he asks.

“First, you should have told her yes,” she says, pointing at the door. Cloud fidgets under the forceful bluntness of her words.

“Er...”

“And secondly,” she says, holding up his paper. She taps it against her desk. “This essay. It’s the second one in which you wrote about Tifa. I would argue they were the most refreshing and honest answers you’ve given me in quite a while.”

Cloud shifts his weight. “Okay. So?”

“So,” she states. “If rekindled friendship is what you want, you’ll have to do better than _that._ ” She gestures widely toward the door.

Cloud scowls. “What if I was lying on my paper?”

Mrs. Bouchard levels him with a dry stare. Cloud sighs.

“Fine.”

“Listen to me, Cloud,” she says, placing his paper in the bin at the corner of her desk. “If I may burden you with a word of advice, it will be this. Emotions are the catalyst of change. If what you feel matches what you write, you’ll have to try.”

“Yeah...” he mutters. “I know.”

“It’s a safari out there in those halls. Relationships are fickle. Don’t let this opening pass you by. You want another beginning, don’t you?”

Cloud feels a heavy pressure on his chest. He doesn’t like this emphasis she’s giving him. The words chafe.

“…yes.”

“Then go to the game,” she says, and she smiles at him. “It’s your last year, here. You don’t have anything to lose except for regret.”

Cloud swallows. “Yeah. Right.” He readjusts his backpack strap on his shoulder. “Thanks, Mrs. Bouchard.”

“You’re welcome, dear.”

Cloud trudges out of the classroom, knowing what his near future is going to look like with building dread.

He’s going to the football game.

* * *

When Cloud arrives in the stands, having secured an inconspicuous space in the family section and far from the students and the crowds that he detests, Cloud texts his cousin.

_Hey, I’m here. Good luck._

He had called him earlier to tell him he was coming—actually _coming_ —to the game. Zack reacted just like Cloud knew he would, with whoops and obnoxious hollers.

“Yes! You mean I don’t have to come find you after the game and drag you to get pizza before we drive back to Gongaga? Is it my birthday or what?”

Cloud had scoffed. “Shut up, Zack. It’s our last year. Figured I should watch you kill us.”

Zack laughed. “I’ll take it! Let me know when you get there, because I still don’t know if I believe you.”

Thus, Cloud texts him. Zack immediately texts back a thumbs up.

Zack is more than likely the only reason Cloud kept his sanity during high school. While Cloud and his mother would travel to Gongaga during the summers for a week or two when Zack wasn’t busy with camps, they would also share correspondence when they could, be it with phone calls or texts once they were older and both received their own cell phones for their fifteenth birthdays. Zack was always so good about checking up on him. If anything, Zack was more his brother than a cousin. They used to whine all the time for both of their families to move to Nibelheim or Gongaga, but job securities and finances as they were, this was an impossibility.

It wasn’t a surprise when Zack became a sports star. He’s Gongaga’s quarterback this year, and at a very tall six foot two inches, he has the ability to see far downfield and thread the ball like a needle.

A few minutes before kickoff, Cloud sees the cheerleaders come out onto the field, taking their places on the sideline. He spies Tifa nearer to the middle of the stands. Cloud is further down the rows on her right, sitting on one of the uppermost bleachers. He can see her perfectly, but he doubts she can see him. He contemplates, for one mad moment, if he should make his presence known. She doesn’t know he’s there, but he feels strange thinking about walking down the stairs of the bleachers just to wave at her. The image is so absurd, he nearly laughs.

Instead, Cloud takes out his journal and aimlessly begins to doodle. Occasionally, he’ll glance up to watch Tifa. She has face paint on her left cheek, covered in their blue and white wolf logo. She has alternating blue and white ribbons in her hair, pulled back into a pony tail that reaches her mid back. It spins like a whip with her movements, snapping around her.

Cloud watches the crowds of the other kids off to his left. He observes as they talk and laugh and push at each other. He hears them shout and yell as the Nibel Wolves get absolutely crushed in the first quarter. Several begin to turn to their phones, and clumps of girls scatter and cluster, talking about things Cloud couldn’t give a shit about.

He sees a guy chat up a girl, secluded on the bleachers and a few feet away from everyone else. They hover around one another, but they don’t kiss. A few of the class clowns have painted their chest and go shirtless, screaming and twirling their shirts over their heads. Cloud can feel the thrumming energy of all of it from where he sits, twenty yards away at the very least. The family section is much calmer, still filled with chatter and murmurs, but nothing as wild and raucous as the teenagers.

By the fourth quarter, Cloud has polished off a soda and divested his hoodie, using it as a pillow behind his back. He has made himself comfortable in his little corner, and he watches as Zack continues to make deep throws and wild, scrambling plays. Sometimes, he’ll have the unfortunate circumstance of being sacked. Mitch is able to get one of them, and Cloud grimaces, sighing as Mitch celebrates with the team. Mitch doesn’t achieve many tackles, and Cloud takes it as a small victory.

Some people begin to leave early when it becomes quite clear that Nibelheim has no chance of winning. The family section thins first before the student’s section, the families wanting to get home at a decent hour. Most of the students leave due to boredom or wanting to do other things elsewhere.

As the teams begin their handshake line, patting each other for a good game, Cloud stands and makes his way down closer to the railing on the bleachers. His heart begins to thud with a thundering rhythm when his eyes find Tifa talking to the other cheerleaders, most packing up their gear. Cloud glances down over the field and sees Zack continuing to talk to a few players, laughing and clapping a guy on the back.

Cloud leans on the railing. He feels a little ridiculous and a lot out of place. He glances back at Tifa and hesitates, wondering if he should call out to her. He doesn’t have to think about it for long, because Tifa turns a moment later. Her eyes catch on his figure, and an immediate grin spreads across her face.

“Cloud!” she exclaims, running up to where he stands against the railing. “You came!”

Cloud blushes furiously. She’s so _excited._ “Uh...yeah.”

“I’m so glad!” Still grinning, she reaches up to the railing and hauls herself up, standing on the ledge and holding onto the railing. Cloud straightens as she comes face to face with him so suddenly. “I told you we were going to lose.”

Cloud’s eyebrow quirks. “Is that what a cheerleader should be saying?”

She gives a quick little shrug. “Game’s over. Now I can say what I think.” She laughs.

It’s so infectious. Cloud is rammed with the fact of how simple she makes it to talk to her. How easy. She merely smiles and welcomes him. Cloud swallows, attempting to smile back.

“Mitch only made a few tackles,” he says.

“I knew you’d be watching for that,” she says. “I heard he was very mad today. He doesn’t want to go to detention.”

“Poor guy. If only he played better, maybe he wouldn’t have to use his brain,” Cloud says.

Tifa shakes her head, amusement on her face. “He had his chance.”

“Yeah,” Cloud says. Their words come to an abrupt end, fizzling, and Cloud’s nerves come back. “Well, uh...”

“Are you doing anything after the game?” Tifa asks, pushing into the railing. “Most of us tend to go grab dinner at one of the diners or the pizza parlor.”

Cloud immediately feels the need to retreat. He wouldn’t exactly mind going with Tifa. If he paused to think about it more clearly, he thinks he would _love_ to go with Tifa. Mostly. Half of him thinks he would chicken out midway through eating and bolt.

Then he remembers Zack. “Uh, actually, yeah, I’m going to—“

“Cloud!”

Cloud and Tifa both glance up, watching as Zack jogs up to the bleachers. Grinning from ear to ear, his eyes settle on Cloud before hooking on Tifa.

“Oh, hi,” he says. “I’m Zack.”

“Tifa,” she answers. “Good game. You played great.”

“Thank you!” he beams. He juts his head at Cloud. “You still wanna grab some pizza? I bet old man Cid will give it to us on the house. Or a discount, at least, since you still work there,” He waggles his brows. “Don’t say no, Cloud.”

“Er, yeah,” Cloud says, uncomfortable underneath the dual attention from both Tifa and Zack. “Pizza is fine.”

Zack whoops. “Man, what has gotten into you? I don’t have to kidnap you to get out of the house?” He turns, whispering loudly toward Tifa. “He hates people.”

Tifa smiles. “Yeah, I know.”

Zack winks at Tifa. Tifa chuckles.

Cloud’s cheeks burn. “I’m...right here, you know.”

“Haha! Just teasing, Cloud. I didn’t realize you had a girlfriend. You never told me! Shock of the _year._ Hey, you wanna come with us?” Zack says, bulldozing through his words, looking over Tifa. Cloud has to grip the railing to keep from falling over.

“Zack, she’s not—“ Cloud stutters.

“Oh, I’m, thank you, but,” Tifa says, shaking her head vehemently. “We’re just—friends.” She quickly looks at Cloud, as if for confirmation. “I’m going out to eat with some classmates.”

“Ah...okay,” Zack says, shrugging. “No worries.” He turns to Cloud, grinning again. “Alright, you ready, then? The bus is gonna take us over there. Wanna ride or meet us?”

Cloud sighs, trying to recover from the whiplash. “I’ll meet you.”

Zack gives him a look. “You better be there in fifteen or I’m gonna call Claudia.”

Cloud groans. “Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m going.”

Zack belts out a hearty laugh and steps back, waving. “Nice meeting you, Tifa! You should still come if you wanna!”

“Thank you!” she calls. She glances back at Cloud, tilting her head. “So, you’re close with the star quarterback of Gongaga?”

“Not by choice,” Cloud says, scowling at Zack’s retreating back. “He’s my cousin.”

Tifa blinks, the information dawning on her. “Oh! That makes sense. Since you… _”hate people.”_ ”

Cloud scoffs, but his stomach flips at her teasing. “Yeah. Right. I do. He always drags me out with his friends when they’re in town.”

Tifa nods, grinning. “Well, it’s against the rules for the home team and the opposing team to be near each other the rest of the night, but...”

Cloud swallows. Unsure of what to say, he tries, “Well, uh, you’re not part of the football team.”

Tifa leans up against the railing, a soft smile curving around her face.

“Do you want me to go?” she asks.

Cloud thinks his heart has been living in his throat for this entire conversation.

“I, uh, well, I mean, uh, if you...”

“Tifa! What are you doing? We’re about to leave!”

Cloud glances over Tifa’s shoulder. Tifa looks up at her name.

It’s Ashley. Her hair is a fluorescent blonde under the stadium lights. They are pulled up into pigtails, curled and bouncing while she shakes her pompoms wildly at them. Cloud grimaces.

“Um, yeah, I’ll be there in a sec!” Tifa waves.

“Hurry up!” she moans. “I’m starving!” When she sees Cloud, she pouts. “Ugh, Strife, what are _you_ doing here? Go away!”

Cloud crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s always a pleasure to hear your whining, Ashley.”

“Oh my god, don’t even start!” she says, stomping her foot. “Tifa, I’m going to be in the locker rooms. If you’re not there in twenty seconds, I’m leaving you!”

As she stalks off, Tifa giggles. Cloud raises his brows at her, but Tifa responds with, “She’s dramatic, but she means well.”

“She’s never meant well,” Cloud states.

“Cloud!” Tifa protests. “She’s really nice once you get to know her.”

Cloud merely rolls his eyes, but he says, “So, I guess we’ll agree to disagree again, huh?”

Tifa smiles at that. “I guess we’ll have to.” She bites her lip. “Um, well, I have to go or else they’ll leave me behind.”

Cloud nods, stepping back from the rail. “Sure.”

Tifa remains on the ledge, hesitating. “Hey, uh, do you have your phone?”

Cloud blinks. “Yeah.”

She holds out her hand. “Can I see it for a second?”

Cloud blinks again. “W-why?”

She shakes her head. “I just want to do something real quick.”

Cloud relents, mystified, and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He hands it to her. Tifa smiles and hurriedly types something in.

“There we go,” she says, handing it back. “Text me? We should hang out now that we’re not in detention!”

She jumps off the railing and quickly runs away toward the lockers, not waiting for his reply. She simply waves. He stares at her back then stares at his phone.  He has to blink a few times before it settles into him, the warmth blazing through his bloodstream.  He sees her name decorating a new slot in his contact information.

That’s how Cloud receives Tifa Lockhart’s number.


	3. Adagio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sweet beautiful people! Happy December!
> 
> Thank you, as always, for your support. I hope you all are enjoying this one as much as I am writing it. These crazy high school kids, I'm telling ya. It is taking me back on a journey. 
> 
> A thousand, million hugs for Somebodys_Nightmare, as per usual, because LISTEN. My stories would not exist if she didn't. <3 Go read her stuff. She's too incredible for this world.
> 
> I hope you all continue to enjoy this! 
> 
> Happy reading. <3

Tifa waits all weekend for Cloud to text her. 

She doesn’t realize how anxious she is until she receives texts from her cheerleading troupe, jerking at the buzz of her phone. Disappointment washes over her as she sees the names appear across the screen. She bites the inside of her lip and questions her actions at the game, wondering if Cloud took it the wrong way. Perhaps she was too forward? Perhaps she unknowingly made a mistake? He might not even _want_ to hang out with her. 

She’d been so delighted when he showed up at the game. Selfishly, she had first thought he must have come for her. She had invited him, and maybe that was all he needed to be persuaded. She wondered, for a moment as she was standing on the railing and looking up into his face, if he had only come to see her. 

It had only lasted a second. He came to watch his cousin play. Of course, it was silly to think that by her invitation alone would make him come to do something he completely disliked doing. 

Still, she had been ecstatic, nonetheless. 

Continuing to stare at her phone, Tifa sighs and throws it on her bed, compiling her laundry and separating loads to put into the wash. 

It isn’t until that evening, after Tifa and her father have their usual Sunday dinner, when Tifa’s phone gently buzzes on her comforters. Tifa is folding her newly cleaned clothes when she gives it a cursory glance. 

An unknown number entitles a text that reads: _Hey. This is Cloud._

Tifa drops a t-shirt, grabbing at her phone. She opens up the message immediately and stares at it. She bites the inside of her bottom lip, unable to help her forming grin. 

As she contemplates what to say, her phone buzzes again. 

_How was your weekend?_

A flutter runs over her as she reads the message, and she turns to lie on her stomach. She glances out her window, catching a glimpse of Cloud’s curtained window across the space of their houses. 

_Hey! :) It was good. I didn’t do much. How was yours?_

She looks at it for a second, overanalyzing her smiley face before rolling her eyes and sending it. 

He replies not long after. 

_Mine was good, too. Same old stuff._

Tifa is instantly curious. Same old stuff? What does he normally do? How does Cloud Strife spend his time outside of school? 

She thinks about asking. Her fingers hover over the keys, but she types out: _What are you doing for lunch, tomorrow?_

It takes him a few minutes to respond. Tifa bides her time and folds laundry, heavily distracted to the point where she begins to wish she could take back the question. 

_I usually eat near the soccer field. Why?_

At his response, Tifa feels immediate relief.

_I was wondering if we could eat lunch together!_

She sends it, then she types out a secondary response. 

_But only if you want. Or if there’s a better day for you, let me know._

_Tomorrow is fine,_ he says. _I’m never busy. I hate people, remember?_

Tifa smiles. _Haha, yeah. I remember. Okay great! I’ll text you at lunch tomorrow, and we can meet up?_

 _Sure,_ he answers. 

She thinks about sending him something else. They could continue the conversation. She could ask him what all he did over the weekend, or if he enjoyed spending time with his cousin and the Gongaga football players. Eventually, she decides she’ll ask him in person. She’ll get to see his face and hear his voice with his answers, and if she’s learned anything from spending detention with him, she already knows she likes it better that way. 

* * *

Tifa watches the clock all throughout that Monday. The closer it gets to 12:05 pm, the more and more she feels her nerves swirl in her stomach. She’s anxious and excited, and she isn’t sure why she’s having such an immense reaction to the thought of eating lunch with Cloud. 

As soon as the bell rings, she’s picking up her backpack, pulling out her phone, and darting out of the classroom. 

_Hey. Where do we meet?_

She waits beside a bricked-in garden, surrounded by the concrete pathways of the school. She glances around at the other kids spilling out of the buildings before looking at her phone. She doesn’t see or hear Cloud before he comes up to her. 

“Hey,” he says.

She starts, turning around. Her cheeks flush and her heart immediately bungles its rhythm. “Oh, Cloud! Hi.”

He’s wearing what she now calls his normal attire—black hoodie, baggy jeans, his Midgar Soldiers cap twisted backwards on his head, and his backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. 

“I saw you when I came out of Economics,” he says, jutting his thumb behind him. “What’s your last class?”

“English,” she says, tipping her head toward the building in front of them. “Mrs. King.”

“AP, right?”

“Yeah,” she answers. “It’s not hard, though. Just a lot of reading.”

Cloud nods, glancing behind her. “My english class is pretty much a joke. We hardly do anything.”

“You should have signed up for AP. I’m sure you would have done well,” Tifa says. 

He makes a noncommittal noise. “Uh. I don’t know. Maybe.” He shrugs before he gestures around. “Did you bring your lunch, or do you need something from the cafeteria?”

“I brought mine,” she answers. 

“Alright. Well, I usually go to the soccer field if you’re okay with eating outside.”

She beams. “Definitely.”

He averts his eyes from her. “Uh, then I’ll show you.”

They begin walking toward the sports fields, near the tennis courts and the open track field. A few bleachers sit around the fields, giving a place for spectators or non-athletes to watch and support their fellow classmates. Tifa follows Cloud, fully expecting to sit on one of the bleachers, but is surprised when he takes a seat underneath them. 

Cloud must notice her bemusement once she takes her seat, because he immediately explains, “I, uh, started to sit here because no one else does. Sometimes the bleachers get busy.”

Tifa begins to smile. “This is fine with me.” She glances around, settling into the grass. Being behind the bleachers even muffles the clamor of conversation coming from the outside benches and clumps of kids eating together around the campus. It is an isolated place, nice and quiet and calm. “I like it,” she says. “It’s peaceful. I can see why you enjoy it.”

Cloud glances at her before turning his eyes away again, taking out his lunch from his backpack. “Yeah.”

“Is this where you go every day?” she asks.

“Not every day,” he says. “I have a few different places I like.”

Tifa pulls out her lunch as well, and she takes a bite of her sandwich. “Where?”

Cloud shifts, and he looks a little uncomfortable. “I, uh, go to the hill, sometimes. The one with the poplar tree. Other people like that spot, so I only go when no one is around.”

Tifa grins. “I love that spot. I don’t go very often, but it has a great view.”

Cloud gives a slight nod. “There’s, uh, a spot behind the band hall.”

Tifa blinks. She’s at the band hall every day and has never heard about a “spot”. “Really?”

He reaches a hand up, taking off his cap. He runs a hand through his hair, and Tifa eyes the messiness of his golden spikes. “I guess it’s not really a spot. I just go there, sometimes.”

“You’ll have to show me,” she smiles. “I’m at the band hall all the time.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says softly. 

They eat in silence for a while. Whenever Tifa is on the verge of a question, her nerves stop her and she shoves another bite in her mouth. 

“What do you usually do for lunch?” Cloud eventually asks. 

“Oh,” Tifa says, immediately smiling. “I’ll eat lunch with some of the other cheerleaders, or sometimes someone will ask during my morning classes. I use it as study hall sometimes, too, and I’ll get together with some classmates for a project or we’ll help each other with homework.”

Cloud leans back, resting his head against the seat of a bleacher. “You’re pretty busy.”

“Not all the time,” she says, pulling out an apple from her pack. “I kind of like it when I _am_ busy, though. There’s always something to do or work on or finish. I’ve gotten so used to that feeling.” She shrugs, looking at him. “What about you? Are you very busy?”

“Not as much as you,” he says, catching her eye. “I’m in cross country, and I’m in track during the season.” He turns his head away, busying himself with his lunch. “I work part-time at the pizza parlor. Uh, you know I draw. I listen to music and go to concerts. I—“

“You go to concerts?” Tifa asks, her interest swelling up again. “What kinds?”

“Whatever comes through town,” he says, palming the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Rock. Some alternative independent bands. Heavy metal.”

Tifa begins grinning. “Wow, Cloud. I had no idea. What’s your favorite?” She points to his hoodie. “Is it the band on your shirt? _Thrice?_ ” 

“Uh, they’re one of them,” he says, glancing down at the jagged lines of the band name. “I’m not sure if I have a real favorite.”

“What other ones do you listen to?” she asks, pulling out her phone. “I love music, too. I’d love to listen to some of the bands you know.”

“Er…” he stutters, looking at her. His cheeks begin to flush, and his eyes widen. _He’s very cute,_ she thinks, suddenly smacked in the face with the realization. He’s cute and quiet and apathetic, but his interests—drawing and music and running and _what else?—_ has her scooting a little bit closer to him. 

“Just a few,” she says. “I’ll give you some of mine. It can be a trade-off, like we used to do with our food when we were younger.”

Cloud shakes his head, but she spies the beginning of an amused smile. “Okay. I’ll give you some, you give me some, and we can tell each other how much we like or dislike our taste in music.”

Tifa laughs before she narrows her eyes at him. “Serious question. Do you like pop music?”

At his silence, Tifa giggles, venturing, “You hate it, don’t you?”

Cloud can’t hide his grimace. “I mean…I don’t _hate_ it, but…”

Tifa shakes her head, smiling. “Okay, so at least I know I won’t give you my favorite pop songs.”

“You can,” he says. “I’ll just make fun of you.”

Tifa lightly shoves him. 

“Well, if you give me _screamo,_ my ears will probably bleed.”

Cloud raises a brow. “Hey, there are some good ones.”

“I dunno. I’ve yet to hear one,” she states. 

“Okay. I’ll change your mind.”

He says it so matter-of-fact that Tifa blinks, sitting up straighter. 

“And I’ll find at least one pop song that you’ll actually _love.”_

“Love to hate, you mean?” 

She wrinkles her nose. “Just wait. You’ll love the ones I give you. But you have to be honest. No lying.”

“Okay. No lying. I’ll fess up,” he smirks. “Same goes for you.”

“Challenge accepted, Cloud.”

They spend the rest of the lunch hour choosing their music and giving each other calculated and deeply thought out lists of artists and songs. By the time the first bell rings, Tifa has migrated closer and closer to Cloud, showing him different album covers and songs on her phone. Cloud is looking over her shoulder at the screen, his shoulder briefly touching hers when she shifts or glances up at him. 

They stand up from their seats underneath the bleachers, walking back toward campus. Cloud is going to his Pre-Calculus class. Tifa is going to Economics. Before their split on the sidewalk, Tifa says, “You wanna hang out at lunch on Friday?” she asks, her nerves much lighter than they had been before. 

“Yeah, I do,” he answers, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket. “Meet at the same place? In front of the English building?”

Tifa smiles. “Yeah, sounds great.”

That’s the beginning of Tifa spending her senior year with Cloud Strife. 

* * *

There are few things in life in which Cloud takes much joy and pleasure. 

There are his normal few—running, art, and music. 

Spending time with Tifa suddenly takes over all three. 

Cloud thinks it occurs quickly, but perhaps it is only because he doesn’t hang out with other people. He’s never quite cared about being around other kids his age, and when he _is,_ he doesn’t feel as though he gets anything out of it. He doesn’t enjoy it. It isn’t fun. It tends to feel like a chore, and he used to do it to appease his mother. She always seemed a bit worried about him. Now that he’s older, she has seemed to let him off the hook.

It’s a very anomalous happenstance. Cloud looks _forward_ to seeing Tifa. He begins to smile at the thought of having her around. He doesn’t even mind her invading his silence and solitude. She starts to rejuvenate the drab, dull aspects of his life that he hadn’t noticed were becoming drab and dull.

He questions it at first. He is suspicious of it. Why would Tifa want to spend time with him, other than just to spend time with him? Anyone else, he’d hypothesize an ulterior motive, but with Tifa…that wouldn’t be true or in character. 

He chances the conclusion that she may be spending time with him because she _wants_ to. He tries not to look at that too closely.

“Okay, I only need a few more. Seven letter word for dumb.”

“Uh…” Cloud thinks, counting on his fingers. “Foolish.”

“Oh, that’s a good one. Ugh. No. It ends with an E.”

“Im…becile… does that end with E?”

“Aw, that’s eight, not seven.”

“…hang on,” Cloud mutters. “This is stupid.”

Tifa laughs. “Stupid is only six letters.”

Cloud rolls his eyes. “Idiotic.” 

“If only.”

“Witless.”

“You’re really good at coming up with words that mean dumb, Cloud.”

He smirks, looking up at the sky. They’re beside the poplar tree, Cloud lying completely in the grass and Tifa sitting upright, school having ended ten minutes ago. Tifa is attempting to finish a crossword assignment for her English class. _Extra credit,_ she had told him. _Of course you’d do extra credit,_ he had ribbed her.

“I have to have good comebacks for Mitch,” Cloud says. “Half the time, he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”

He hears her sigh at him. He glances at her, seeing a small smile at the corner of her mouth. 

“You and Mitch…two peas in a pod.”

He pushes up onto his elbows. “Two peas in a pod?”

“Oh, you know,” she says, innocently shrugging. “They say if you go out of your way to be mean to someone, it means you _like_ them.”

Cloud gives her a dry look. “Tifa.”

“Listen, Cloud, if you have a crush on Mitch, you can tell me.” She winks. “I don’t judge.”

“I take great offense to this.”

Tifa curls her lip under her teeth, trying not to laugh. “You do?”

“I like girls, thank you.”

“ _Oh,_ okay. That’s good to know.”

He can hear the thick teasing behind her voice. He almost breaks into a smile but he retains a minimal expression.

Giving up on the crossword, she tosses it to the side and lies back beside him.

“I was hoping that would be obvious,” he states.

Tifa shakes her head. “You know I was only joking.” She turns her head to look up at him. “Some of the girls wonder about you, you know.”

Cloud feels his eyebrows raise, and he catches her eye. 

“About my gender preferences?”

This makes Tifa laugh. Cloud enjoys it tremendously when he can pull one out of her. 

“No, no. Just about…being such a loner and going against the rules…” she pauses, and she reaches for a few threads of her hair, turning them over a finger. “Some of my friends are scared of you—“

At that, Cloud scoffs. 

“And others are, um, interested.”

That piece of information almost has Cloud choking on thin air. 

“Er…what?”

Tifa gives him a funny look. “Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t.”

She turns away quickly after she says it, and Cloud is struck by the implication of her words. 

“I don’t…know why they would…” he trails off, not finishing his line of thought.

“Why haven’t you dated, Cloud?” she asks softly, and Cloud gives a little start. His cheeks immediately flood with heat. 

“Uh, I don’t know. I mean…I guess because it’s high school.” He shrugs. “Never seemed to matter much, and I’ve never been interested.”

“Ah. Yeah.” She frowns. “I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

“You’ve dated,” he says. “Haven’t you?”

He poses it as a question to save face. He has an idea about her relationships. He’d always hear about it from troupes of boys or football players. It seemed the athletes would always spend more time with one another, having practices and friends in common. One thing always led to more and more, and Tifa was just as susceptible to this as any other girl. She went out with a few football and basketball players throughout high school. They didn’t last long, but Cloud had heard about them through the grapevine, and he had listened to them unfold. A few months in, and they would break up or amicably drift apart. Cloud didn’t think anyone could hold bad blood with Tifa, even if the boys were heartbroken in the end.

“I have,” she allows, her voice lilting. “Nothing serious.”

Cloud’s stomach starts to twist at the subject. How did they go from synonyms for dumb to _dating?_

He’ll never understand the flow of conversation. 

Cloud runs his hand over the short, dry grass surrounding him. “Some of the football guys, right?”

“Yeah,” she answers. “John. Mason. And Richard. They were really nice, I just…” she pauses, glancing up to the leaves on the poplar tree. “It’s like you said, I think. I wasn’t very interested. But they gave me attention, and that was…great receiving attention from boys who cared.” She continues to twirl at her hair. “Felt a lot like my friendship with them, except we’d hold hands and go to dinner by ourselves. I don’t know if there was or _is_ anything different.”

In the moment, Cloud has a wild streak to tell her that it _is_ supposed to feel different. She’s supposed to feel her heart plummet into her gut, just like when they’d jump off the swings all those years ago. It’s supposed to be terrifying but exhilarating. It’s supposed to make her palms sweaty and her tongue stutter. 

But…how would he _know_ that? He can’t tell her any of this without confessing that he once had a crush on her. And the most pitiful thing might be that he is already starting to develop another one. Brighter. Bolder and brilliant. Lying beside her on the school hill should not be giving him these old, nostalgic sensations. It shouldn’t be making him feel anything. 

But he does feel. He feels a lot. His fingers itch with the need to create something. His stomach is cradled with warmth just being around her. They lie in a blanket of silence, but it’s the most comfortable he’s ever been around anyone else, and it’s sickening—sickening and unfair, because she’s Tifa Lockhart, and how can he dare to feel this way for someone so pretty and profound? 

“Maybe it is supposed to be different,” he manages after a few minutes. “Maybe that’s how you know when it matters.”

She shifts in the grass, turning on her side to fully face him. He turns his head, and they lock eyes with each other. 

Pretty and profound. He’ll draw that later, he decides. Her looking up at the poplar tree or her looking at him this way, smiling and thinking on his words. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I bet you’re right.”

They leave a few minutes later, and once they say their goodbyes at their designated crossroads, Cloud watches her back for a moment longer. 

In the middle of drawing his picture at his desk, listening to yet another pop song Tifa had declared _the one for him,_ Cloud is hit with an epiphany. The seven letter word for _dumb._

Asinine. Completely, utterly asinine. 

Cloud stares at his second drawing of Tifa within a month— _a month_ —and laughs. 

He likes her. He likes her a lot.

* * *

Tifa receives a text later that evening. She’s lying on her stomach, sprawled on her bed, school notes scattered around her and a three-ring binder open and displaying all its contents. She puffs out a breath and reaches for her phone, immediately pushing herself up when she sees it’s from Cloud.

 _Asinine,_ it reads. _For your crossword._

Grinning, Tifa pulls out the assignment from her backpack, plugging in the word. 

_Bingo,_ she texts back. _Thank you. You’re a genius._

_Hardly._

_You should have taken AP English._

_No way. I would have sucked, then you would have had to tutor me,_ he responds.

_I wouldn’t have minded. Tutors get a bump in their average._

_Oh, I get it. You would have used me._

_Maybe just a little._

Smiling, Tifa glances up through her window. At her angle, she can glimpse at Cloud’s house. She has a view of his bedroom window, too, though the curtains are always drawn. 

Except.

Except tonight, they _aren’t_ drawn. This must be the first time in years that she’s noticed. His bedroom light is on, and she can see directly into his room. She sees part of a chest at the end of his bed. She sees a desk and a door to what might be the hallway or a closet.

A moment later, her jaw drops to her mattress. Cloud walks by the window. He’s wearing only a towel around his hips. From the distance, Tifa can’t tell if he’s damp from a shower, but his hair is droopy, and he’s holding his phone. She is too far away to see his expression, but she can see him typing. 

_Honestly, if it would have helped you, I’d have done it,_ he says.

Tifa’s heart crawls into her throat. She quickly glances from her phone back to the window. 

For a boy whose main workout is running, he is certainly…defined. 

Tifa feels her face heat up like a tea kettle. Her mouth quickly becomes dry. She sinks deeper into her mattress, trying to hide but unable to look away. She prays he doesn’t look up and see her through the window—well, she can always act like she’s not looking and pull her hair across her face. He’d never know, but—

He walks out of her line of sight, and she regrets it almost instantaneously. Then she scolds herself for feeling that way. She _is_ invading his privacy, even if she had been innocently glancing out of her window. But he…he looks…well…

He comes back into view a moment later, sweatpants now in place of the towel. She ogles his abs for a few more daring, thrilling seconds, then she turns away, trying to bury her face in her papers. 

The image of him is burned behind her eyelids. The magnitude of his torso decorates the margins of her paper, and he probably _was_ damp, his skin wet and smooth and rigid. And he texted _her_ as soon as he’d come out of a shower. 

She swallows. She’d admitted to herself he was _cute_ before. 

She thinks that might have been a horrible understatement. 

* * *

The next day, she meets Cloud under the bleachers. 

As soon as she sees him, her mind conjures him up half-naked. Gone is the hoodie and the t-shirt underneath, leftover with the backwards cap and ripped jeans. In a ridiculous twist, she thought about him all night. She stared up at her ceiling and kept thinking of Cloud Strife, clad in a towel, smirking with his normally spiked hair floppy around his ears, framing his face. 

She presses her fingernails into her palms, making lightly taut fists. She squeezes her eyes shut and blinks a few times, scattering the image.

She will be the only who knows. She will never tell him, and she’ll never tell any of her girlfriends. It will be strictly imprisoned in her mind never to see the light of day, because it’s so _embarrassing._ And it—it—

Her heart races at the thought. Her palms become slick between her fingers. A boy has never made her body react this way. Warm, simple affection? Of course. Friendly, sweet touches and hugs? Absolutely. 

Sweating and a tight stomach and a heart revving like an engine? 

Not in her whole seventeen years of existence. 

He glances up from his notebook as she takes a seat. She makes sure there is at least half a foot of space in between them. 

“Hey,” he says, smiling a little before he turns his attention back to the page in his lap. 

“Hi,” she says, her voice raspy. She swallows to help wet her throat. “What are you working on?”

He’s been doing that more and more often lately when they’re together. The first time he started to draw, he seemed very hesitant, as if he wasn’t comfortable. Slowly, he’s become more at ease. Now, half the time they’re together, he’s doodling or drawing or tapping his pencil against a sketch pad, contemplating an angle or a scene. 

“Uh, a cat,” he answers. “One of the strays around campus.”

Tifa peeks over his shoulder, then she settles away from him, pulling out her lunch bag. “That looks really good so far.”

“Thanks,” he says, continuing to add lines. “I don’t draw animals very often.”

Tifa pulls out one of her binders, hoping to distract herself. The more she watches him draw, the more she notices how slender his fingers are. It takes a lot of grace and control to create the pictures he does, and Tifa’s mind thinks about them interlaced with her own. How warm would they be? What would it be like to touch them?

She immediately begins to blush. She shakes her head, glancing out toward the campus and finding someone else to watch. 

“Your teacher give you the extra credit?” he asks after a few minutes, beginning to shade in the outline of his cat. 

Tifa holds in her sigh. Cloud in a towel. _Asinine._

“Y-yeah, she did,” she says. “Thanks again for that.”

“Sure,” he says, giving her a small smile. “Can’t promise I’ll be able to help all the time.”

“I’ll still appreciate it,” Tifa says, smiling back. She swears he glances at her lips before he looks away, and Tifa’s heart gallops at a concerning pace. 

She picks at her sandwich, feeling unable to eat it. While she has grown accustomed to their silence, and she revels in it when it occurs, today is not the day for it. If they do, she will marinate in the image from last night. 

This is why she tries to think of anything else to talk about. Tests coming up, drama between classmates, different sports games…

“Hey,” she starts after a moment, peering up at him. “Next week, we have our fall orchestra concert. You want to come?” She pauses briefly before continuing on. “Um, I know not everyone cares about orchestra, so if it’s not your thing, don’t worry about it.”

He’s halted in his drawing, and she can see him thinking. She barrels on before he has a chance to answer. 

“Since you have _okay_ taste in music, I thought there might be a chance you’d enjoy orchestra, too,” she says.

At that, Cloud’s eyebrows raise. He looks over at her. “ _Okay_ taste in music?”

“It’s alright,” she says, shrugging and smiling lightly. “My ears haven’t started to bleed, yet.”

“Oh, sure, says the girl who enjoys mainstream pop music,” Cloud says. 

“It is not bad!” she rebukes, beginning to laugh. “You have to find the good ones. Once you do, it opens up a whole different world of music.”

Cloud shakes his head, but he relents. “I, uh, actually liked one of the songs you gave me to listen to. I listened to it last night.”

Did he listen to it half-dressed, sitting at his desk and inspired to draw? Or did he listen to it in his shower, where he was fully naked?

Both instances of thought tie up her stomach, but Tifa pushes through her embarrassment with the help of her excitement. This is the first time Cloud has ever mentioned he likes one of the pop songs.

“Really?” She inches forward. “Which one?” 

Cloud opens his mouth, but she interrupts. 

“Wait! Don’t tell me!” 

She pulls out her phone and scrolls, finding the one she believes it to be. She points when it appears.

“This one?” 

Cloud blinks. “Yeah. Good guess.”

Tifa smiles. “I was hoping you’d finally like that one. The lyrics _and_ the beat are good.” She nudges him. “I thought you would appreciate the, “you’re on your own,” part.”

He scoffs, amused. “You got me. I could probably run to that song.”

Tifa stares at him. “What? Honestly?”

He blushes. “Uh…yeah.”

“High praise, Cloud,” she grins, admiring the pink in his cheeks. “I knew I’d find one. Only took…a whole _month.”_

He laughs briefly, and she realizes that she’s gotten too close to him. She’s broken her internal, personal rule. She needs to move away. 

“You should try out her other stuff. You might like some of the other songs she’s made.”

“I’ll take a listen,” he says. 

She should move away. Their faces are close. He’s looking at her with bright eyes, and her heart begins to race as if it’s competing with itself. 

“I wanna go to the concert,” he says as they stare at each other. His blush lingers, but their proximity doesn’t seem to be bothering him. “You said it was next week?”

Tifa begins to swell. Her insides begin to feel three times too big. 

“Y-yeah,” she says. “Next Tuesday. It’ll be in the auditorium in the music building.”

He nods, finally turning his head toward the school. Tifa takes in a full breath, shifting a few inches away from him. 

“What, uh, songs are you going to play?” he asks.

Tifa messes with her lunch bag, but she has completely lost any appetite. “Oh, just an adagio and concertos. Classicals that you’re probably unfamiliar with.” She pauses. “They’re pretty, though.”

“I’ve never been to one of the orchestra concerts before,” he says. 

“Don’t get too excited. They aren’t like the heavy metal concerts you go to on the weekends,” she says, her tone light.

“I’ll try to keep low expectations, then,” he says, smirking. 

Eventually, Cloud continues his drawing, and Tifa sits beside him in silence until the bell rings. As they walk to their classes, Tifa has the urge to ask him when he started opening the curtains surrounding his bedroom window. 

But she doesn’t, because she can’t. 

The rest of the week, she keeps her secret, hoping and watching and being an utterly creepy peeping tom, all for the desire to see Cloud damp and topless and divine. 

* * *

The next Monday, Tifa is unable to walk home with Cloud. 

“I’m going to stay to rehearse songs for the concert, tomorrow,” she tells him at lunch. She practices at home most of the time, but she tries to do it when her father is still at work. The piano makes him sad, she’s told him, and she doesn’t like to invoke those feelings in him any more than she has to. 

For concerts, she likes to practice more on the school piano. It has a different texture, she’s tried explaining to him. Slightly more tension in the keys than the keyboard she has at home, and there is a change in her rhythm. 

“It’s hard to describe,” she had said, sheepishly. 

“Nah, I get it,” he answered. “It’s like when I use the school’s art equipment versus mine at home. Definitely not as good or the same.“

“Exactly,” she had smiled.

It’s strange walking home without her, and it’s funny how things have changed so quickly, when once it would have been out of his scope of imagination to ever think he’d make it a regular occurrence.

* * *

The concert starts at 7:30 pm that Tuesday evening.

Cloud takes a seat, as usual, away from the students and parents. He tries to find the unfavorable areas, but he’s mildly surprised to find that most of the auditorium fills up. It is not large at about only 150 seats in total. Cloud sits nearer to the uppermost corner, on the side where the grand piano is most visible. From his angle, he’ll be able to see Tifa’s form. He might be able to witness her hands curving over the keys and pressing into them. 

He takes out his phone and sends her a text. 

_Hey. I’m here. You’ll do great._

She responds a few moments later.

_Thank you, Cloud! :)_

By 7:25, all the players file out and take their places. They begin tuning their instruments, the resounding lilt and swell of the notes. They are singular and poignant, echoing against the walls of the room.

He sees Tifa take her seat at the piano bench. She is wearing a black dress, matching the uniform of the other players. The boys wear white dress shirts and black slacks, all donning a black jacket. Some wear ties or bow ties. Most of the girls wear dresses or skirts, their hair in proud updos or curled and flowing down their backs.

Tifa wears a simple black and silver beret a over her left ear, holding back the sheaf of her hair. The view of her entire profile is on display, from her temple to the line and point of her nose, the dive of her neck and the fine edge of her shoulder. 

She wears a stud in the lobe of her ear. A simple chain hangs from her neck, falling across her chest and reaching the middle of her torso.

She turns her head when the conductor takes his place at the podium. Her cheeks and lips shimmer under the lighting, her eyes a deep, blazing red. 

All the players still, placing their bows upon the strings. The audience immediately quiets, and the hush is a force all its own. It curls around Cloud’s throat like a hand, like the height of a rollercoaster at the precipice, about to fall.

The conductor lifts his wand, and in a flick of his hand, the concert begins in a flurry. There is no introduction or waiting. The free fall happens in a rush, and Cloud expels a breath, not realizing he had been holding it.

The first song is a frenzy. The notes punch the air. The bows fly and jump across the strings, the tempo high and vivacious. Tifa’s hands blur above her keys, her hair shifting across her back with her movements. 

There are crescendos and sudden softness, and then there is a slow build, the sound getting greater and greater, manic and wild and nearly frightening. One of Cloud’s hands grip the armrest of his seat while it happens, and once the notes hit their peak, the conductor finishes with one sweep of his hand. The bows lift off the strings. Tifa’s hands still above the keys. The ending note lingers in the air and presses into Cloud’s skin like fingers—so alive and charged and electric.

The conductor, Mr. Bugenhagen, lowers his hand, and the players lower their instruments. The audience erupts into a roaring applause, a few daring to shout whoops.

Mr. Bugenhagen finally turns, smiling broadly at the mass of people.

“Good evening, everyone. I am very pleased to have all of you with us, tonight, listening to this talented group of young adults. They have been working hard on these pieces, to express the journey and the emotion the composers meant for these songs, and I am most certain it will show through. 

“So, without further ado, here is the Nibelheim Varsity Orchestra.”

Mr. Bugenhagen turns back to the orchestra, everyone coming to attention and settling into their playing positions. In one big breath and a tip of his wand, the music begins again.

Cloud watches the different players, from the violins, violas, cellos, and basses, but his eyes remain the most on Tifa, watching her face pinch in concentration, glancing up occasionally at Mr. Bugenhagen, her hair spilling across her shoulders with the quick and deliberate movements of her wrist and fingers. 

By the last song, which is slower and sweeter—it does feel like an ending, Cloud thinks—she begins to softly smile, and her eyes close for a few moments between the longer, sustained notes. 

She seems to be at peace, and Cloud’s hands begin to itch again, wanting to recreate this scene on paper. It is too beautiful to be forgotten, and it doesn’t last long enough. 

The ending notes come in a flourish, and the concert is over too soon. Cloud is shocked to see it has lasted forty-five minutes of nearly endless music, but it hasn’t felt that long, not in the slightest.

The clamor of the audience is deafening. Some of the parents begin standing, and the ovation is generous as everyone else follows their lead.

Mr. Bugenhagen brings his hands up in a gesture, allowing the students to stand and receive their adoration. As Tifa stands, her eyes rove over the audience as she smiles at everyone. There are too many people for her to see him, and he admires how she looks—completely shining, her skin gleaming under the lights, her eyes sparkling from the performance.

Mr. Bugenhagen finally turns to give a short bow, and everyone begins to sit back down, disperse, and the players begin to shuttle back into the band hall behind the auditorium. 

Tifa picks up her music, placing the papers back into her folder. An older man, who Cloud almost immediately determines is her father, comes up to her and hugs her. He kisses her cheek, and she squeezes his arm. He says a few words, she nods, and he departs. 

Two other girls come up to her once he’s gone, and they chat and grin with one another before following behind the others to the back room.

Some of the classmates come out of their seats and find their friends, rubbing them or patting their shoulders, laughing as they go to the back room. 

Cloud hesitates, wanting to stand and enter the band hall. Some of the audience lingers, parents chatting and a few coming up to Conductor Bugenhagen, asking questions or discussing the pieces of music.

Cloud waits a few minutes, deliberating on what he should do. As more and more of the audience leaves, he makes up his mind, standing from his seat and walking down the steps of the aisle. He turns down the hallway to the band hall door, entering to find a handful of players placing their instruments in their cases and into their lockers, the conversation filling up the room. Some leave with their parents and others leave in groups of friends. 

Tifa is near the back, placing her folder of music into a small tote bag, talking to a cellist and a violinist—the two she had left the concert hall with. She laughs at something one of them says, and she turns her head. Her eyes catch on Cloud, and she beams even more, waving him over. 

The two girls look up and see him, too. One raises a brow and one grins, giving the other an elbow to her ribs. The one with the raised brow says something to Tifa, and Tifa rolls her eyes, standing up and shifting her tote on her shoulder. She shakes her head and says something, instead beginning to walk over to where Cloud is loitering.

“See you guys tomorrow!” she calls, turning to face Cloud as she gets closer to him. He sees her dress is belted along her waist, a shiny, thick black belt with a black buckle in the front. The skirt flows over her hips and ends at her knees, fluttering around her legs as she walks. It has short sleeves and a scoop neck, and it is very simple but elegant. Face to face with her, he can tell she’s wearing eye makeup—either mascara or eyeliner or both, making her thick eyelashes thicker and bolder, and her cheeks are more flushed than normal. Gloss shines on her lips, bordering her teeth with her smile.

Her hair is pin straight and shining, looking like fine silk across her shoulders.

“Hey,” she says. “I’m so glad you came. Did you like it?”

Cloud has to swallow to help get his words out. “Y-yeah, it was great. You were...you were great.”

She grins. “Thank you. I’m happy you enjoyed it.” She gestures to some of the kids lingering in the band hall. “They played really well, tonight. Better than practice, which is always a good thing.”

“Yeah, I thought the songs were…intense. And pretty. You were right. I’ve...it was different. A different type of concert,” he says, unable to express the feeling. How his heart was pounding during the tension filled stanzas, how his stomach curled during the immaculate crescendos. He feels a bit ridiculous at the thought of saying anything like that. 

She places her hands on her hips, seemingly triumphant. “I told you. It isn’t like other performances.” 

He starts to smile, nodding at her tote. 

“The way you played the piano was really...great,” he says. Lamely. He keeps repeating himself. Great. It was great. What other words can he say than _great?_

“Oh,” she says, shifting and ducking her head. “Thanks. I loved the songs that Mr. Bugenhagen chose.” Glancing up at him, she says, “I can show you the music sheets if you’d like.”

Cloud blinks. “Uh, yeah. Sure. I’d like to see it.”

Tifa smiles, and Cloud can’t get over how thick her eyelashes are. The way they border her eyes makes their redness so rich and loud and bubbling, and he knows he could stare at her for hours on end.

“Okay! C’mon, let’s go to the concert hall.”

Cloud shoves his hands in his jean pocket, walking beside her. 

“I’m surprised. You’re wearing nice clothes,” she says, glancing at him.

“Uh...figured I should wear something that wasn’t ripped,” he says. His attire is nothing special. He’s wearing a clean, white t-shirt and dark wash jeans that do not have any broken threads or holes. He’s forgone his hoodie, and he misses the shelter it provides, covering up his entire upper body. 

Tifa’s glance lingers for a moment. “I like it,” she says.

“I like your dress,” he blurts, wanting to bite his tongue. “Uh, it’s nice, too.”

“I always wear this for the concerts,” she says, but she avoids his gaze. “It’s a tradition for me.”

 _It’s pretty,_ he wants to say. _You’re really,_ really _pretty._

They come up to the piano, and she sits on the edge of the bench, pulling out the music. Cloud remains standing, taking his place behind the bench.

Few people remain in the concert hall. Some are kids, chatting with one another or on their phones. Mr. Bugenhagen is talking to one last pair of parents. The hall is otherwise empty.

Once Tifa places the sheets on the piano stand, she glances at him. “Sit beside me,” she says. “It’s easier.”

“Oh,” he says, easing himself on the opposite edge of the bench. He can smell a bright, fresh perfume and realizes he’s close enough to smell her. His body begins to tense.

“Better, right? Now you can see,” she says, smiling. “This was the first piece. Which was your favorite?”

“I liked all of them,” he says, eyeing the confusing mass of black lines and dots on the sheet. “But I really liked the last one.”

At that, Tifa nods. “That was my favorite, too.”

Cloud imagines the soft serenity that had come over her during the performance. As she shuffles the pages around, he notices that same, soft look begin to appear on her face.

“I think it’s just...so calming to me,” she admits quietly, tapping some of the keys with her right hand. “I found myself playing it at home without even meaning to practice.”

Cloud stares at the sheet, slowly becoming cross eyed at the foreign language of music notes.

“That you can read this is...incredible, Tifa.”

Tifa straightens a little, the softness in her face disappearing. Cloud isn’t sure if he said the wrong thing, only to see that Tifa starts to smile. 

“I’ve done it for several years,” she says, as an explanation. “It’s just like reading a book, or naming colors. It’s so...natural to me, now.”

“Tell me about it,” Cloud says, intrigued by all of the artistry on the page. “What do the symbols in the margins mean? And the notes...”

Tifa seems to perk up at his questions, easily answering his curiosity. “Oh, of course. I’d love to tell you. So these,” she points to the beginning left hand side of the song. “Are the symbols for treble clef and bass clef. Usually, you play treble with your right and bass with your left. These are sharps or flats, this is the time signature, meaning how to count the different notes...”

Tifa carries on and on, pointing out all the different symbols, including crescendos and decrescendos, the p’s and f’s for softness and loudness, the changing of the key signatures, trills, repeats, and everything in between. Cloud loses her halfway through her descriptions. She talks so quickly and succinctly, saying things as though Cloud knows the meaning behind them. Cloud focuses on Tifa, instead, her mouth moving a mile a minute, twisting over the words. Her eyes are vivid with knowledge, sparkling to the brim with the passion of delivering her experience and history over the subject of piano and music. 

Cloud begins to smile as he watches her, the words flowing through one ear and out the other. When she pauses to take a breath, she glances up at him and the rest of her words falter.

“And I...um...oh, I’m sorry,” she says, turning away from him and glancing at the keys. “I’ve been talking so much.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “I like listening to you.”

She starts to curl in on herself, her shoulders rolling forward. “Well, I...think that was everything I wanted to tell you.”

“There’s a lot to learn,” he says, his voice coming out as a whisper. He tears his eyes away from her and looks over the song. “What’s your favorite part to play? Like, which three or four lines?”

She softens again, automatically turning the pages. She lands in the fifth. 

“This part,” she says. “The rhythm and the tone...there’s something about it.”

Cloud glances over the lines, the notes connected like hills and valleys, the symbols she talked about sprinkled around every other stanza.

“Want me to play it?” she asks. “You’ll know it once you hear it again.”

Cloud slowly nods. “Yeah. Only if you want to play it.”

“I always want to play,” she smiles, already placing her hands on the keys. “I’m starting right here,” she says, reaching up and tapping a finger against the beginning of a line.

“Okay,” Cloud says.

Tifa takes in a small breath, then she presses her fingers into the notes. Her fingers melt into the instrument, and her hands are fluid and sure. Cloud watches in amazement as they slip around the black slivers of keys and the thick, creamy ivory rectangles, her pressure changing, the angle of her wrists bending and relaxing with how she says the notes and how she brings them into the world of the concert hall, reverberating against the walls.

She only plays a page. It ends too soon.

Always too soon, Cloud thinks.

“That’s it,” she says, placing her hands in her lap.

“That was beautiful,” Cloud confesses, the words easier to say right after watching her. 

This time, he can see her blush underneath her makeup. “I—yes. This song is beautiful.”

Cloud opens his mouth, trying to tell her that isn’t what he meant. _You’re beautiful,_ is what he wants to say. He wants her to know. Surely she knows it, already, and it doesn’t matter if he says it, but it’s suddenly different because he _wants_ to say it. He _wants_ to tell her he’s never met anyone like her. He wants...

“Oh, Tifa.”

They both jerk, looking up over the piano. Mr. Bugenhagen stands at the entrance before the door to the band hall. 

“Make sure you leave before the custodians lock the doors. No later than 9 pm, okay, dear?”

Tifa nods hastily. “Oh, yes, of course Mr, Bugenhagen. We’ll be gone before then.”

He bows his head. When he stands tall, there is a smile on his face as he looks over them.

“Wonderful job, tonight, Tifa. You play splendidly.”

“T-thank you, Mr. Bugenhagen,” Tifa answers, her cheeks still burning brightly.

With that, Mr. Bugenhagen leaves them, the door clicking shut behind him.

Tifa glances up at the clock hanging above the seats in the room. It reads 8:40 pm. “I guess we should go home. It’s getting late.”

“Yeah...” Cloud says, finding it difficult to hide his disappointment. “I guess we should.”

They stand from the piano, Tifa gathering her music and slipping it back into her tote. Cloud slips his hands into his pockets, and Tifa steps in time with Cloud as they make their way to the exit. They begin walking to the parking lot.

“I drove here, tonight,” Tifa says. “Did you walk?”

“Nah,” he answers. “I rode my bike. I parked it right over there, but I’ll walk you to your car.”

It’s only a few paces away from the main lot. 

“Oh,” Tifa says. “Thank you, Cloud.”

He shrugs. “It’s the least I could do for you teaching me so much about music tonight.”

“You ever wanna know more, just ask,” she smiles. 

“I will,” he answers. They stop beside her sedan. It is small and compact and an older, used model. She had told him her dad got it for her as a practice car, just in case she ended up totaling it. _He really believes in me,_ she had said sarcastically. _But I am lucky I was able to get a car._

“Thanks for inviting me,” he tells her.

“I’m happy you came,” she says. 

As they stand before one another, Cloud feels that deep, terrible urge to tell her something meaningful. But as she stares at him with her big, round, dark eyes, it’s impossible to say anything at all. 

“I’ll…see you tomorrow?” she asks, posing the farewell as a question. 

“Yeah. Of course. See you tomorrow.”

Cloud rides home on his bike in the black silence of night, but all he can hear is the notes Tifa played for him in the empty concert hall. 

They ring in his mind as he falls asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I imagined Tifa giving to Cloud and him enjoying was:
> 
> [Out of It](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4noJQPVnDKU) by Fallulah
> 
> An orchestra song that is one of my favorites of all time, and that I _heavily encourage_ everyone to listen to:
> 
> [Adagio in G Minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u99f9RAvwu4) by Tomaso Albinoni


	4. Blueprint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hi hello, I love you all. Thank you so much for your support for this story! I hope you continue to enjoy it. (I think I've finally figured out how many chapters this will be! LOL)
> 
> Special thanks, shoutout, praises to the love of my life, Somebodys_Nightmare. There's something to be said about the support for something as creative and vulnerable as writing. She makes me feel worthy.
> 
> Happy reading! I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Tifa becomes a certified _freak._

This is what she labels herself over the course of the next week, after her concert.

Cloud’s window is never curtained, anymore. For reasons out of her control, she counts her lucky stars that of all times, he decided he would open up his window _now._

She learns his routine from her bed. Sprawled on her stomach, she begins to notice he arrives in his bedroom a few minutes after they both get home from school. He sits at his desk awhile before he goes downstairs. It will be at least an hour before he comes back to his bedroom, either using his bathroom or working on what she guesses is homework. She can’t see his own bed from her angle, so she utilizes her imagination and thinks of all the things he _could_ be doing. Does he read? Listen to his music? Get on his laptop?

Does he glance through her window when she isn’t looking?

No. He can’t. He wouldn’t, because he isn’t a _freak._

Tifa sighs, and presses her face into her hands. She’s even gone so far as to turn the lights off in her bedroom so he can’t see when he comes out of the shower. So she can watch without fear or increased humiliation.

Tifa doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive herself for doing this. She tells herself that every day, right before she sees Cloud in a towel, or in sweatpants, or _taking_ _off his shirt._

The rest of the night, forgiveness is the furthest thing from her mind.

This is _worth_ it.

It’s worth it until she sees Cloud the next day, and all of her organs begin burning up with shame and betrayal.

He smiles at her too easily, now. His gaze lingers, and it occurs more often. He no longer shies away when they sit close to each other. It makes her resolve start to crumble. The least she could do is _stop_ spying on him in the evenings.

But then she gets home, and the temptation is too vibrant and too real. She’s addicted to it. It’s habit, and if she’s completely transparent with herself, she doesn’t _want_ to break it.

At least she hasn’t started to use binoculars. That fact gives her little consolation.

It’s in the middle of one of these evenings, Tifa hiding in the dark, when she sees a half-dressed Cloud grab his phone. Her own phone buzzes not a moment after.

_So, thin crust or thick crust?_

She blinks at the question.

_What? Pizza?_

_Yeah. I’m having a debate with Zack._

She glances up through her window, seeing Cloud at his desk and leaning back slightly in his chair. He’s looking at the phone, tapping his lips with a pencil.

 _I feel like my answer will determine if we stay friends or not,_ she sends.

She watches Cloud’s profile and is delighted when he smiles as he reads her response.

_Nah. If we’re still friends after our different music choices, I don’t think pizza can do anything._

She stares at the text, contemplating and beginning to smile.

_Okay. Honest answer?_

_Yeah._

_You’re sure?_

_Positive._

Tifa looks up at Cloud, typing in her answer. She immediately gauges his reaction when she hits send.

_Thin crust._

She sees him begin to smirk. She thinks that might be a good thing.

 _Really?_ He responds.

Tifa bites her lip.

_Yeah._

_Me too._

Tifa smiles. She looks up, and Cloud has stood from his chair, smirking down at the phone as he walks out of her view.

_Wow. I thought we’d be at odds for sure._

_Same. Zack is team thick crust._

_Zack can suck it._

_Haha, I’m going to tell him you said that._

Tifa grins, feeling a flutter behind her sternum.

_LOL please do._

_I guess this redeems you for your musical preferences._

_Oh hush, you love the pop songs I give you._

_Yeah, yeah. Anyway, what are you doing?_

That’s the night Tifa and Cloud begin texting on a regular basis.

Tifa, though she holds only the best of intentions, remains a voyeuristic freak.

* * *

A week after Tifa’s concert, Cloud shows her the band hall “spot”. It’s nothing extraordinary or extravagant. It’s merely a dip of grass, surprisingly quiet for the clatter and ruckus that goes on in the hall behind it.

Tifa begins to invite him to her piano practice sessions a few days after school. It is as busy as ever, with them already cramming to learn holiday pieces for their end of year concert. Sometimes, Tifa plays sections of the holiday songs and Cloud sits against the wall, doodling. Other times, Cloud sits beside her and they get distracted, and Tifa tries to teach him the basics of the notes and how to read music.

“Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb…” Tifa intones, half-singing and half-saying. She hits the black keys in time with the words. “See?” she says normally. “This is the easiest song I can teach you besides _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_.”

Cloud places his fingers where hers used to be. “Yeah, simple. Except…hm. No. I can’t do it. Can you repeat it again?”

Tifa gives him an unamused look. He’s asked her once before, and she’s now caught on. “Cloud, I’m not going to keep singing.”

He can’t help but smile at her dry expression.

“Why not?”

“ _Because,”_ she says, shaking her head. “I’m _terrible_ at singing.”

“I don’t think so. Your rendition of _Mary Had a Little Lamb_ is one of a kind,” he answers, words laced with teasing. He revels in her blush and her pouting.

“ _Stop,”_ she whines lightly. She places a palm on her forehead before rolling her eyes. “I’m not going to keep teaching you if you make fun of me.”

“Who says I’m making fun?” he says.

“Strife, I’m warning you…”

“I like when you sing,” he says. It’s an easy confession, especially when she rewards him with an even deeper blush.

“Um…” she tries.

“So, _Mary Had a Little Lamb,”_ he continues, trying not to stare at her. She’s not only pretty. She’s _cute,_ too. She’s a girl with a variety of talents, and he never thought being two different kinds of attractive at once could be a real thing. When he places his hands on the keys again, his elbow bumps her arm. The zap he feels is all in his head. He knows it is, but that doesn’t keep him from pressing down on the keys, the sound ugly and discordant.

“Uh…so…” he trails, attempting it again. He says the words as he plays the keys. “Mary had a little lamb…”

Tifa’s blush begins to fade, and she smiles at him. “Wow, look at you. A _natural.”_

“Now who’s teasing…” he mumbles, and she laughs. “It’s only three notes.”

“And if you add your other hand…” Tifa says, reaching across the piano. Her forearm brushes against his chest, and Cloud nearly jumps at the sensation. “Place your fingers on these three, and practice playing them both together.” She settles back a little, but their shoulders remain touching, and Cloud thinks if he doesn’t stop noticing these tiny touches, he is going to go insane.

“Y-yeah…okay,” he says, placing his left hand on the other three black keys.

“It feels weird at first, and a little unnatural, but you get used to it,” she continues.

“Right,” he says. He plays them together, and they _do_ feel weird. His left hand is definitely less coordinated and has no fine motor control whatsoever.

Tifa praises him unnecessarily, but he accepts it because she’s beaming at him. It’s silly how happy she gets about the smallest triumphs.

“I have no idea how you do this with actual _songs,”_ he says. “When your hands have to follow two different beats and timing.”

Tifa simply shrugs. “Like I said, I’ve been doing it forever. If I hadn’t learned when I was young, I’m sure it would be much harder to play.”

Eventually, Tifa deems he levels up to _Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,_ and while it isn’t hard to play, the white keys all look the same. Tifa is too patient with him, but eventually she giggles when he messes up purposefully.

“No, no,” she laughs. “That’s G, not F. Twinkle, _twin-kle,_ see?” she says as she plays it, the second note higher than the one he hit.

“Tifa, I have no idea what that means,” he says. “So, this is G?”

He hits the note, and Tifa nods. “Yes. And then A, for the _little_ part.” She plays them together and tells him to repeat it. He does but misses the note.

“Cloud, you did that on purpose!” she laughs again, reaching for his hand. “Look, let me show you this way.”

She settles his hand in a starting position she’s showed him before, and she places her hand on top of his. How they’re sitting makes her chest graze against his shoulder. He inhales a breath.

“So, it starts with C, here,” she says, pressing her thumb into his thumb. “ _Twin-kle,”_ she plays, then presses his pinky finger. “ _Twin-kle._ And then you reach for the A…”

She extends her pinky to hit the note, and her hand shifts enough so that her fingers slot into the spaces between Cloud’s for a moment before she settles it on his and taps his pinky down again.

She continues to play. “How I won-der what you are,” she says, in time with pressing against each of his fingers.

Cloud is too distracted by the feel of her palm to notice the song, much less to tease her about her half-singing. It is warm and mostly smooth, but he notices the grips of callouses, and he watches how her fingers curl against his like a hug.

“Up a-bove a sky so high, like a dia-mond in the sky…”

Cloud swallows as she finishes, leaving her hand atop his.

“See?” she says, grinning. “Easy.”

When he looks up at her, her grin begins to fade, and Cloud senses a shift in the air between them. They are close enough to create a line of warmth where they touch. Her hair prickles his cheek.

Unable to place what type of shift, he croaks, “Says you.”

“Yeah,” she says, and the word comes out heavier. It is almost breathy, and low, with an edge of a husk, and Cloud’s never heard her voice sound like _that_ before.

Cloud turns his head away, looking at their hands layered on top of each other, like a glass filled with water and oil.

Without thinking too hard, and mostly to distract himself from the chemical reactions happening inside of his body at how she said _yeah,_ Cloud gently flips his hand underneath hers, grabbing her hand and turning it over.

“Uh, you can’t get callouses from playing piano, can you?”

He runs his thumb across the pad of her palm, where her fingers connect to her hand. Belatedly, he realizes this action might not be any smarter than staring at her face.

She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she says quietly, “Um, no. They’re probably from cheerleading.”

“Oh, right. Cheerleading.”

He begins to let go of her hand, only for her to grab his. His heart leaps into his throat, and he glances up at her. She’s looking at their hands.

“What about you? You have a few callouses, here.” She runs a few of her fingertips over his palm, and he tries to keep still. Her touch is light and barely there. “Probably not from drawing, right?”

There is a forced lightness in her tone, and Cloud can’t determine if she’s struggling as much as he is. Probably not. Boys hover around her like bees to honey.

“Uh…weight lifting,” he admits.

She blinks up at him. “Weight lifting?”

“Strength training helps avoid injuries with cross country,” he says, parroting his coach. “Uh…it also helps with punching people.”

At that, Tifa breaks out into a laugh. The shift between them lightens, and Cloud sighs. The fist in his chest loosens.

“I see,” she says, and she smirks a little. “That makes sense.”

“Yeah. I used to be really scrawny, too, so weight lifting has helped with that,” he continues, her touch pulling out all these words from some hidden place deep inside of him. She does it so easily. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“You were scrawny?” she asks, quirking up a brow.

“Y-yeah. Very,” he admits. Horrified, he realizes he’s beginning to blush underneath her scrutiny. Her fingertips are driving him crazy.

“Oh. Hm. Not so scrawny now, then?” she asks, her eyes falling to his hoodie.

“I’ve…been working on it,” he mutters.

“I guess I couldn’t tell with you wearing all that baggy clothing,” she says, and there’s a little smirk forming on her face, again. She’s always so kind and gentle that the smirk makes her seem _devious._ At the sight of it, something starts coming to life inside of Cloud’s stomach, clawing at his skin.

It’s this feeling and her fingers—it must be, both of them driving him into a state of lunacy, that makes him blurt, “Maybe I could show you, sometime.”

His eyes widen after he says it. She stares at him, her mouth parting ever so slightly—it’s not even enough to see her teeth, just a slither of a shadow in between her lips. Cloud’s eyes hook on it, seeing the shine from the inside warmth of her mouth. If touching her lips feels anything like the warmth created by the barest touch of her fingers, Cloud thinks he’d give up part of his life to experience it.

He really, _really_ likes her.

The band hall door slams shut a moment later, and they both scuttle away from one another on the piano bench. Cloud’s chest heaves as though he hasn’t taken a breath in ten minutes. In retrospect, he probably hasn’t.

Tifa glances at the door, and he can tell that she might be embarrassed. He comes back to his senses immediately now that she’s not touching him and he isn’t imagining _kissing her._

“Uh—I—I mean, one of my meets. Cross country. You could—come to one of those, if you wanted,” he stumbles and stutters, trying to find a secondary meaning to telling her she could see him— _undressed?_ Is that _really_ what he meant?

“O-oh,” she says, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Y-yeah. Sure. I’d love to come watch you.”

“Great,” he states.

“Just, uh, let me know when.”

“Sure.”

They look at each other then look away. Cloud goes to stand.

“Well, uh, I should probably…”

Tifa stands, too, jumping up and gathering her bag. “Yeah, same. I should…go home.”

“Do you…still want to walk together, or…” he trails, suddenly feeling like the shift has returned—now that it _has_ shifted, he’s not sure if he can turn it back. He admits that he hates it. It feels so awkward, now. So suddenly irreparable.

 _That can’t be right_ , he thinks. He’s probably just being dramatic.

Tifa bites her lip and hesitates.

Okay, maybe he _isn’t_ being dramatic.

“I…yeah. Let’s go,” she says, but she avoids his eyes. She shrugs her backpack over her shoulders and begins walking toward the exit.

Cloud follows behind her, lifting up his cap and running a hand through his hair.

The entire way,he wishes he had simply said nothing.

* * *

Later that evening, Tifa can’t sleep.

_Maybe I could show you, sometime._

Tifa brings her hands up to her face, covering her eyes. She’s under the cover of darkness, already, but she thinks her cheeks are bright enough to light up her entire bedroom.

She imagines Cloud standing there, in his stupid baseball cap, twisted backwards, smirking at her knowingly, topless and wearing his sweats.

She thinks about how he looked in his white t-shirt at her concert. His sleeves cutting into the juncture between his shoulder and his bicep. The vein running down the line of that bicep. How his veins protruded along the inside of his forearm.

 _Man arms,_ she thinks, sinking deeper into her mattress. _Strong arms._

Her shame makes her body boil. She shouldn’t be thinking of Cloud this way. He’s her friend. It’s not—it’s not exactly _wrong_ to admire him, but she feels like she’s still betraying him, somehow. But she shouldn’t be. No. There’s really nothing wrong with being attracted to a friend who is a boy. Her past history is filled with instances of this—though it’s never _felt_ this way. She’s never felt so entrenched in the desire or the lingering want of an extra touch or smile or gaze from anybody.

She sighs. She cherishes their suddenly budding friendship too much for this stupid attraction to get in the way. She thinks she can keep it separate. She can joke around and tease and text him during the days. Then, she can get her fill of her attraction at night, here in her bed, staring up at her ceiling.

She’ll imagine how his hand felt underneath hers on the piano keys. The strong, rough texture of his palms. The long, enduring length of his fingers.

She’s not sure what compelled her to do that only a few hours ago. She’s tried to teach other friends piano songs, but she’s never gotten so close or placed her palms onto someone else’s so intimately like that. Someone who _wasn’t_ her boyfriend.

Still, she didn’t think much of it until she glanced up at him, realizing how close they had become. How still and stiff Cloud’s reaction had been. How her heart backstabbed her, it’s beat pounding in her fingertips when he turned it over in his palm.

She’ll relive this day for a while, she thinks, because her physical reaction had been so…involuntary. Uncontrolled. Visceral. When she imagines his smiles and his stuttering, the tilt of his head and the endless blue of his eyes, every muscle in her constricts. It’s hard to ignore in the dead of night, all alone with the feeling. She is wound up like a coil, tight like a french braid. She can’t get comfortable. She’s restless. She tosses and turns, huffing. She gets so frustrated that she turns her head in her pillow, expelling a muffled scream.

She’s not sure how to relieve herself. Actually, no, scratch that. She _does_ know. She’s had enough sleepovers with her girlfriends, had enough curiosity to talk about and blush profusely when describing the intimate moments with boyfriends, how far they would go, how terrifying but _how good it feels, too._

She knows what she _can_ do, but she doesn’t dare. She can’t allow herself to do something so…taboo as she thinks about Cloud this way, in the secret confines of her mind. She curls in on herself, willing the feeling to go away.

The only thing she can feel semi-comfortable doing is closing her eyes and fantasizing about Cloud’s proficient fingers touching her skin. _Where?_ She thinks. _Anywhere._ Starting with her hands, then trailing up her wrist and forearm, her shoulder, her collarbone, grazing against her neck.

Then she envisions his lips, leaning into him and kissing him. Just kissing him. Wondering how his sarcastic, smart, teasing, clever mouth would feel like, meshing against hers. How would his breath feel? How warm and agonizing? Where would his hands go?

Tifa falls asleep that way, that night and the next nights following it, dreaming of Cloud kissing her.

* * *

The day after the piano lesson, Tifa and Cloud settle back into their burgeoning friendship. Tifa acts as if nothing out of the ordinary happened, and Cloud shrugs and grunts and retains a little more reticence than usual. They continue to go to lunch over the course of the next days, and by the time a week passes, it seems the shift—whatever it had been—is suppressed and erased. It’s a small blip on their radar. Something simple and silly and shrugged off as _nothing._

Tifa broaches the topic of Cloud’s cross country meet at one of their lunches, once she gains enough courage to bring it up. Cloud invites her to the one that coming Saturday

“It starts at 8:00 am,” he tells her apologetically. “Sorry. They’re usually pretty early, but that’s because of the temperature and the distance we run.”

She smiles easily. “Oh, that’s okay. I like waking up early on the weekends.”

He smiles back. “Alright. I’ll text you the information.”

When Saturday comes around, Tifa stands on the sidelines at the meet. She’s bundled up in a light jacket, thermal tights, a scarf and beanie. The late November chill cuts through the air. The coldness is dry and sharp, and Tifa admires all the runners for committing themselves to this specific brand of suffering.

She’s about to pull out her phone to text Cloud before she notices someone running up to her. Clad in a blue tank, matching shorts and tights underneath, a blaze of golden messy hair, Tifa realizes that it’s _Cloud._

She’s never seen so much of his skin so up close. She stares at his arms. Then his neck. Then at his tank top and how she might be able to see the outline of his chest if she squints.

 _Isn’t this what he meant?_ Her mind says, betraying her. Blood floods into her cheeks as he stops in front of her, smiling.

“Hey,” he says, huffing. “You made it.”

“Yeah,” she says, smiling distractedly. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Sorry, you’ll have to stand around in the cold,” he says. “And it’s kind of boring. You’ll be able to see us run in some of the spots where there aren’t many trees, but…” he trails, and he suddenly turns sheepish. “Not the best thing to ask you to come see.”

Tifa eyes the muscular curve of his shoulders. _No,_ she thinks. _It_ is _the best thing to see._

Her cheeks heat even further. She shakes her head at him, laughing to hide her embarrassment. “I don’t mind it. I’ve never been to a cross country meet.”

“Uh, good,” he says, shifting his weight. “You could cheerlead. It might inspire me to beat my time.”

Tifa grins at that. “You should have told me. I would have brought my pom-poms.”

Cloud eyes her smile, raising his gaze to her head. “Nah. You being here is inspiration enough.” He reaches up and flicks the fuzzy ball on top of her beanie. “Besides, you brought _one_ pom-pom.”

Something about the way he looks at her as he talks to her, his cheeks flushed from the chill and the smirk gracing his lips, makes her blood perfuse enough to warm her once very cold hands.

“Yeah…you’re right,” she says.

“And they sell hot chocolate over there, if you want,” he says, pointing off to the kiosk. Other classmates and parents hover around it, some already holding cups or thermoses filled with coffee or tea.

“I’m set, then,” she says, still staring at him.

One of his teammates calls him back, and he tips his head at her. “Gotta go.”

“Good luck,” she says.

“Thanks,” he smiles, turning and jogging away.

They set up their marks at the beginning of the route, the umpire blowing a whistle for the start. As soon as it sounds, the boys take off in a flurry of different paces.

Cloud’s right. She can catch glimpses of him on the path, watching his stride between the trees. He’s fast. The boy’s circuit is a four mile race. The girl’s is three. Cloud admitted he’d been averaging five and a half minute miles when she asked.

“I could go to state if I can shave off fifteen seconds,” he had told her. “But if our team can average five minutes, twenty seconds, that’s all we’d need.”

Tifa enjoys running, too. She enjoys a lot of exercise, but the time he told her continues to shock her. Seeing it in real time is even more impressive and exhausting. There is a large, digital clock that has been set up at the finish line. He told her he wants to try to hit twenty-one minutes and twenty seconds. Tifa had teased him about being so specific. He had merely blushed and shook his head at her.

“I like trying to outdo myself,” he had answered.

As the time inches closer to his goal, the more and more Tifa notices her nerves. She holds her second cup of hot chocolate close to her chest, scouting the trails for Cloud’s head while glancing back at the clock.

She sees him round the corner right at the twenty-one minute mark. He has twenty seconds to run what looks to be a distance that is too long to finish in such a short amount of time. Tifa tightens her grip on her cup.

“Go Cloud!” she shouts, eyeing how quickly the clock is ticking. His feet eat the ground underneath him, hitting three strides every passing second.

When Cloud crosses the threshold, his time is clocked at twenty-one minutes and eighteen seconds. Tifa sighs, grinning and watching Cloud recover. He places his hands on top of his head, and he walks around for a few seconds before glancing up at the board with the times. She sees him begin to smile as she runs up to him.

“You did it!” she cries. “I knew you’d do it!”

She can see the thin, sheen of sweat lining his arms, his cheeks ruddy from effort. His chest continues heaving, but it slows as he lowers his hands from his head and places them on his hips.

“Yeah. Shit, that was hard.”

Tifa laughs. “I can’t believe you could keep that pace for that long.”

“I haven’t before,” he says, grinning. “You brought me luck.”

His smile wider than normal, his lips splitting over his teeth. It feels as though she’s smacked in the stomach with a sledgehammer. She’s never seen him smile that way, his eyes on fire from the runner’s high, the beads of sweat sliding down his neck, and his _man arms_ on full display.

“I—I wouldn’t say that,” she says, shaking her head. Her eyes keep hooking on his smile. “You’ve been practicing for this.”

He shrugs, still beaming. “Sure, but I think it was the power of your pom-pom ball.” He reaches up and flicks it again. “We should celebrate.”

“Celebrate?” she asks, her eyes fastened to his lips. She knows how she would like to reward him. She imagines all of her kissing fantasies with him in the depths of nighttime, hidden underneath her bed covers. She wonders what it would be like right now, to reach up and lock her fingers behind his neck, all sweaty and damp, pulling him down into a chilly, late November kiss. She wonders if it would taste like his run—all wind-whipped and full with the tang of autumn.

“Yeah,” he huffs, his grin calming down to his normal smile. “I dunno what, but something.”

A few of his teammates finish soon after, and they fist bump and congratulate one another, some having received their own records.

The girls run next, and the boys are herded to the sidelines, the coach talking with them before they allow them to roam free, encouraged to stay and support the girl’s running.

Cloud slips on a school-issued jacket, grabbing his water bottle and taking a few pulls from it. Tifa berates herself for immediately missing the view of his arms.

He comes to stand beside her once he’s released from the group huddle.

“You okay with staying for the girl’s run? I was gonna stay for support.”

This makes Tifa smile. “Of course.” She elbows him. “Are you always this sweet to your fellow runners?”

He scoffs. “I’ve really been volun-told,” he says, pointing toward his coach.

Tifa laughs. “I still think it’s nice of you to stay.”

He merely shrugs, glancing away from her and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. He points at her cup.

“You enjoy the hot chocolate?”

“Yes. It was delicious,” she says. “You want one?”

“Nah,” he says. “Maybe later.”

“So, you said celebrate,” she ventures. “Think of anything?”

His eyes dart to her face. Hers fall to his lips inadvertently.

“Uh…” he says, his gaze flicking off to the side. “Not really. Actually, I’m sure my mom will just cook me something I like.”

“Oh…okay,” she says, abruptly disappointed. What had she hoped he’d say? Something bold and daring, like asking for a kiss?

No. She doesn’t know. That’s silly.

“Well, if you think of something,” she says. “Let me know.”

“I will,” he says, smiling softly.

They remain standing close to one another, and Tifa thinks his warmth helps ward off the morning chill.

* * *

His mom had dropped him off at his meet on her way to work that morning. Tifa generously offers to drive him home instead of him taking a ride share.

He instantly accepts, taking his seat on the passenger’s side. They drive in silence for most of the way, Tifa fiddling with the radio station and giving him a look, saying not to even think about making fun of her station choice. He only smiles.

Once she pulls up to his house, he fidgets and takes a deep breath.

“Hey, I—“ he starts, cutting himself off.

“What?” she asks.

Cloud feels very awkward all of a sudden.

“I, uh, work for a few hours today. But when I get home…” He runs a hand along the back of his neck. “What I mean is, my mom will probably make a huge dinner when I tell her about my time. Would you, uh, want to come over to eat? For old times’ sake,” he mumbles hurriedly.

He’s not sure why this makes him feel so embarrassed. He can’t quite catch her eye.

She’s silent for only a moment. “Oh, I would love to.”

“Uh, okay, great,” he nods. He goes to open the door. “I’ll text you, then. See you later.”

He jumps out of the car before he can feel any more disconcerted.

“Cloud!” she says before he closes the door behind him. He finally glances up to see her smiling. “Good job, today. I’ll see you later.”

He can’t quite answer her smile. His anxiety rams up his throat.

It’s not like he asked her on a _date._

When he gets to his room, he shakes the nervous energy out of himself, blasting them down with a hot shower.

Nope. Not a date at all.

* * *

When Cloud gets home from the pizza parlor, he takes his second shower of the day, ridding himself of the yeasty fumes and stink of tomato sauce and Cid Highwind’s cigarette smoke.

He texts Tifa when his mother tells him it’ll be ready in half an hour. Her response is almost immediate.

_Be there soon!_

His mother is almost _too_ delighted at the prospect of Tifa joining them for dinner. 

“Oh, it will be so nice to see her. It’s been too long,” she says, smiling at him. “I’m so glad you two are spending time together, again. Tifa has always been such a lovely girl.”

Cloud tugs at the collar of his t-shirt. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

“Mm. Well, I am happy to hear it,” his mother tells him, smiling warmly. As she begins to place a few used dishes into the sink, her tone changes slightly. 

“Now, Cloud...” she broaches. “I know you’re smart, and you are usually responsible.”

Cloud’s eyebrows begin to fall over his eyes. “Mom, what are you...”

“But you are at that age, and have been for a while. I’ve had this talk with you before, but if you decide to pursue Tifa, or any other young lady for that matter, please make good choices.”

Cloud reddens. “Mom.”

“You’re a handsome boy, Cloud. It is easy to get carried away,” she persists. “I just want you to be careful.”

Cloud runs a hand over his face, the bright burn of embarrassment unavoidable. “Mom, please. I know.”

She eyes him. “And if you need anything...”

“Mom!” He ducks his head. “I’m—I’m not...fine. Yeah. Okay, thanks.”

She smiles at him, seemingly appeased, and dries off her hands on a towel. She grabs a few clean plates. “Good. Now, help me fix the table?”

It doesn’t take long for the doorbell to ring. Cloud jolts up before his mother can, going to answer it.

When he opens the door, he’s greeted by Tifa and a dazzling smile. 

“Hey,” he says. 

“Hi.” She holds up the tray in her hand. “Um...I brought cookies.”

Cloud raises a brow, stepping back from the door to allow her entry. She steps in, taking off her boots. She’s wearing the same tights from earlier that day, along with the same light jacket. 

“Cookies?” he says. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”

“I know, I just thought...” she says, shaking her head. “I remember your mom would always have chocolate chip cookies for us after we played with the neighborhood kids. So I brought some. For old times’ sake.”

Cloud blinks at her before he begins smiling. “Yeah. We did use to do that, didn’t we?” He offers to take the tray, and she hands it to him. “Thanks, Tifa.”

“Of course,” she says, following him into the living and dining rooms. Cloud’s mother greets her with limitless amounts of warmth and affection, giving Tifa a hug before they settle into seats around the dining table. She chats with Tifa more than Cloud does, asking about how she’s been, her schooling, her hobbies, what she does for fun. She learns more about Tifa during the passing dinner hour than Cloud had learned in the past month and a half. Cloud eats his food quietly, amused by his mother and listening to Tifa’s responses, knowing most of the answers to his mother’s questions. He secretly prides himself over it.

“Cloud told me he loved the orchestra concert,” his mother says during their conversation. She eyes him. “He wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

Cloud blushes furiously, opening his mouth before looking at Tifa. She’s giving him a heavily amused glance. 

“That’s...an exaggeration,” he says. “My mom wishes she went.”

“Now, that’s true, I do wish I had gone. Perhaps your holiday concert?” She asks, winking. “I know Cloud’s already planning on going.”

Cloud hides his face in his food, grumbling. He’s starved his mother of this kind of stuff. Never again is he inviting anyone over, ever.

Tifa perks up. “I would love it if you came, Mrs. Strife!”

“Oh, please call me Claudia,” she says. “And certainly. I’ll make sure this one tells me the date and time.”

Cloud rolls his eyes, shoving a big bite in his mouth to keep from responding.

They move onto the cookies for dessert, to which Claudia exclaims about Tifa’s baking skills. 

“A young woman of many talents, aren’t you, Tifa?”

At her words, Tifa finally turns bashful, dipping her chin towards her chest. “Oh, no, not really. This recipe was very simple.”

“Nonsense. Baking is it’s own kind of skill. Do you like cooking?”

Tifa glances up, smiling. “I do. I tend to do most of it, because my dad is terrible.”

Claudia laughs. “I see. If you ever need new recipes, I will be happy to lend them to you.”

Tifa’s eyes brighten. “That would be amazing. Thank you, Claudia.”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

They eventually clean up, depositing the dishes in the sink and wiping down the dining table. In the middle of it, Cloud gains the nerve to mutter a question to Tifa. His heart is already beginning to fluctuate with its rhythm, but he shrugs it off.

“Do you, uh, wanna hang out upstairs?”

She looks at him, and he can’t tell the look she gives him. “I...yeah. Sure.”

He tells himself not to care. He tries to don the apathy he could hide behind so easily a mere month before.

“We’ll be upstairs, Mom,” he calls across the kitchen. Claudia is putting leftovers in the fridge, glancing up at them. 

“Alright, have fun,” she says. Before they can escape, she says, “Oh, and Cloud?”

He stops, Tifa halting beside him. “Yeah?”

“Not that I don’t trust you two darlings, but would you mind leaving your door open?”

Cloud groans. He notices that Tifa covers her mouth with a hand, stifling a giggle.

“Mom...” Cloud moans before sighing. “Yes. I’ll leave the door open.”

“Thank you!” she trills behind them, and he can hear more than see her smile.

“Sorry,” Cloud mumbles to Tifa as they climb the stairs. 

She shakes her head. “Oh, it’s okay. I don’t care.”

“She’s embarrassing.”

“No, she’s not! She’s great,” she says. “I like her.”

“She’s alright when she wants to be.”

Tifa chuckles at him. “You only say that because she’s your mom.”

As they enter his room, he tries to maintain his nerves. He hasn’t had anyone in his room other thanZack in a long time. He made sure to hide anything revealing before dinner, including his more personal drawings. He tidied up, putting away all his dirty clothes. He made up his bed. His room doesn’t look half like it normally would had he not had a girl coming over.

Tifa glances around the room, her eyes alighting on his posters and different photos clipped to the walls. She eyes some of his medals, her stare lingering on his desk for a moment before she turns to him.

“I like this space,” she says. “It is very...you.”

“It is my bedroom,” he states.

She laughs. “Oh, you know what I mean.” She turns to the desk. “Is this where you draw?”

“Yeah,” he says, scratching his neck.

She taps her finger against the wood. He’s left most of his tools out in the open, including his pencils, both graphite and colored, along with reference pictures and erasers.

“This is very cool,” she says. “You have so much stuff.”

He shrugs, feeling overly exposed. “Uh, yeah.”

She glances over to his photos, walking up to them and examining them. “Hey, I know him. That’s Zack, right?”

“That’s him,” Cloud says. “The others are my aunt and uncle. There are a few pictures from track and cross country.”

Tifa looks at all of them, and Cloud finds himself at a loss, merely letting her absorb his entire life in his small room. He takes a careful seat on his bed, which is a full size. Big enough to hold them. Small enough to hardly give any personal space.

As if he wants it, he thinks, sighing out a puff of air. He pinches the bridge of his nose while she has her back facing him. 

She hums, eventually turning to him. She sees him sitting on the bed, and she finally shows signs of hesitation, her eyebrows pinching.

“Uh, we don’t have to sit up here,” he says, going to stand. “We can...sit on the ground.”

“No, that’s okay,” she says, walking forward and taking a seat. The bed dips slightly in his direction, and she smiles. “This is just fine. Besides,” she says jokingly. “The door’s open.”

Cloud scoffs, laughing and feeling the tension begin to unravel. 

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I won’t pull any moves on you,” he says.

Tifa grins, placing a hand on her forehead. “Phew. I was nervous.”

Smirking, Cloud pushes himself back toward his headboard, reaching over the side of the bed and grabbing his laptop. 

“You wanna watch a movie or something?” he asks. 

Tifa follows suit, sitting beside him. “Sounds good to me.”

Her proximity is distracting, but he tries to ignore it, acting as if his heart isn’t beginning to ram against his chest. 

He pulls up a few streaming services, and they take a while to choose a movie, both indecisive or uncaring, and Cloud is content enough to just lie with her there.

A few minutes into the movie, he hears Tifa whisper, “Hey, Cloud?”

He glances at her. “Yeah?”

She’s quiet for a moment, staring at the laptop screen. “I’m, um...thanks. For inviting me to celebrate with you,” she says, her eyes drifting up to catch his. “It was a good day.”

Cloud’s heart begins to thud at her tone. It’s gentle and soft. “You’re welcome. Thanks for saying yes.”

Satisfied, she curls deeper into his pillow. He turns his head, shifting to watch the screen but hardly interested in the show. The laptop sits in between them, but their heads are close. 

Eventually, Cloud is being gently pushed. He grunts and opens his eyes, bleary and foggy with sleep. 

“Cloud, sweetie,” his mother says. “It’s time for Tifa to go home.”

“...oh,” he mumbles, pushing himself up. “What time is it?”

“Eleven thirty,” she whispers. “Her curfew is midnight, but I wanted to give you two some time to wake up.”

Cloud groans lightly, rubbing at his eyes. He glances over to his side to see Tifa curled up on his pillow, breathing deeply.

She’s pretty, even in sleep. He stares at her for a moment before nodding, looking at his mom. 

“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll wake her.”

Claudia smiles and takes her leave. Cloud sighs, placing his palm on her shoulder. _She’s soft,_ he thinks. Soft and warm. 

“Hey, Tifa,” he says, quiet. “Hey.”

She makes a little noise, furrowing her brows. She burrows her head further into his pillow. 

“Tifa,” he says, chuckling lightly. “It’s time to wake up. It’s almost your curfew.”

“Mm...Cloud,” she sighs. “No.”

“It’s eleven-thirty,” he tries.

“Five more minutes,” she mumbles. 

Cloud hesitates, taking his palm away from her shoulder. He finds a few of his fingers become tangled in her hair as she shifts, and he carefully extricates them. Well, that’s what he means to do. What he actually does is run his fingers through the waterfall of her hair—but just once. 

It’s as silky as it looks. 

“Alright,” he yields. “Five minutes. But that’s it.”

“Mm,” she sighs. “Good.”

He watches her for those next five minutes, wanting to tell himself to stop. Isn’t it weird to watch someone sleep? Isn’t it creepy and bizarre? If she woke up and caught him, would she be completely mortified? 

Would she smile?

When he shakes her the second time, she finally relents and opens her eyes. 

“Your bed is really comfy,” she says, her voice husky and thick with sleep. His stomach bolts to his knees at the tone, so similar to the one she gave him in the band hall.

“Yeah, it is,” he says. 

She rolls and pushes herself up, running a hand through her hair much like he had before. It’s still straight, if only sticking to the side of her face with the static from his sheets. Her t-shirt has risen above her tights, wrinkled and disheveled, and he can see a brief flash of her flat stomach. When she looks at him, she smiles, rubbing at her eyes.

“Okay,” she says, stretching her arms above her head. Cloud watches all the lines and curves she makes, her back arching and her chest round and generous. The lighting from the moon only caresses and enhances the dips and shadows. She licks her lips, wetting them, and leans back on her hands.

Cloud stares. The image brands itself in his mind. His palms begin sweating. His stomach tightens.

Oh.

She looks like...a poster. 

_Fuck_.

“I’ll grab my things and head out,” she says, pushing herself up and off the bed, stretching one more time as she stands.

_Not again,_ he thinks, forcing his eyes away from her. He sighs roughly, attempting to ignore the quiet noise she makes. 

“Yeah. I’ll—walk you out,” he says, rubbing at his eyes and feigning sleep when really, he’s doing his best not to grimace.

He ends up walking her across the path to her home. The neighborhood is one of the friendliest in town, but Cloud doesn’t care about that, feeling much more comfortable seeing her safely inside. Once they stop in front of her door, Tifa smiles softly, face still tender with sleep even against the sharp coldness of the nighttime. 

“Thanks for walking me, Cloud.”

“Sure. Get some sleep,” he says, trying to avoid any lingering goodbyes. He’ll go mad. He’ll do something regretful if he stays any longer, because now he’s seen her in his bedroom, rumpled with sleep, hair splayed across his pillow and...

What’s he supposed to do, now?

“You too,” she says, turning to her door. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” he says, stiffly, and immediately treks home.

He’s nearly distraught as he falls asleep. His mind is filled with the scent of her hair on his pillow, dreaming of her lying beside him and covered in the white blanket of the moonlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will become rated Explicit in the next chapter (I have already changed some tags). Just a forewarning for anyone who is not into that kind of thing! (I also wanted to mention this, because Tifa will be 17 years of age. CRAZY KIDS. Trust me when I say it's also for story progression).
> 
> Thanks, guys. <3


	5. Textbook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS.  
> Thank you everyone, ALWAYS, for your sweet comments and love for this story! I feed off the comments like dessert. Y'all are really sustaining me for the busyness I'm enduring in real life, so thank you for that.
> 
> OH LOOK. Shout out to Somebodys_Nightmare for reading over this, beta-ing, and helping me become a better person overall. SHE IS THE BEST. Go read her stuff! You will fall in love just like I have.
> 
> Happy reading! I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Also, I know I mentioned this before, but heed the rating change. *finger guns*

The next few weeks fly by in a blur.  There are cheer practices for the last sports games of the semester, practicing for her holiday concert, and studying for her mid-terms. There’s spending time with her friends that _aren’t_ Cloud, but it seems to get harder and harder with each passing week. When she pulls out her phone, her immediate reaction is to pull up Cloud’s contact. If she hears a funny joke or absurd drama in the classroom, she tells Cloud about it first. 

When Ashley invites Tifa to her annual Christmas party, it’s the first time Tifa hesitates in telling Cloud.

_He won’t want to go,_ she thinks. He doesn’t care about Ashley at all. He doesn’t care about any of the people who are invited. He’ll probably hate it, stuck in crowded rooms with not just strangers, but people he likes to antagonize and punch on occasion. 

It’s a terrible idea to even bring it up, but Tifa can’t miss it. She goes every year. She’s even played some Christmas tunes on the piano at the encouragement of her friends, and it’s become a ritual. 

It’s also senior year. It’ll be the last Christmas party of her high school career. She _has_ to go. But she already feels the disappointment and the potential future loneliness, being surrounded by so many of her friends yet missing Cloud at the same time. 

It’s only after the holiday concert, receiving a hug from Claudia and her father, Cloud off to the side with the expression she is so accustomed to seeing nowadays—soft and bright with an easy-going smile.

“Hey, Cloud,” she says, pulling him away from their parents. “So, this weekend, there’s going to be a party.”

Cloud raises his brows at her. “A party?”

She nods. “A Christmas party. I go every year. It’s...tradition.”

“You do like traditions,” he says, smirking. 

“And it’s the last year. It’s always fun...I mean, I know you don’t like crowds, and you won’t like anyone who will be there...but...” she sighs. “Would you think about coming?”

Cloud frowns. “Do you want me to go?”

She nods vigorously. “Absolutely.”

He blinks at her response. “Oh. Uh. Then sure.”

Tifa nearly gasps. “What? Really?”

“Yeah. It’s just a party.” He half-shrugs. 

Tifa is floored by his simple answer. So nonchalant. So uncaring and blasé. 

She squints. Usually when he answers this way, it means he’s hiding his true feelings about something. “I don’t want you to feel pressured.”

He smiles. “I’m not.”

She bites the inner meat of her lip, trying not to get too excited before she drops the next round of information. “There’s, um, one more thing.”

“What?”

“Ashley is hosting it.” Tifa cringes. “Her parents are in Costa del Sol.”

Cloud crosses his arms. “Ah. Well, on second thought...”

Tifa plucks at the front of her dress. “But Cloud, I promise it won’t be—“

“Tifa, I’m kidding,” he says, chuckling at her expression. “I’ll still go.”

Tifa straightens, the warmth of excitement freely flooding over her. “You will?”

He seems increasingly amused by her reaction. “Uh, yeah.”

She feels like her lips will tear from how widely she’s grinning. “Oh! Thank you, Cloud!”

She jumps forward and wraps her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. She squeezes him tightly against her, and she feels him stiffen underneath her touch. Soon, however, he begins to relax. His arms come around her waist, resting lightly against the small of her back.

It’s the first time Tifa hugs him. 

In fact, it’s the first time she’s touched him so closely. And she likes it.

She likes it a lot.

* * *

When that weekend rolls around, Tifa has decided to change her traditional Christmas party attire. She stands in front of her closet and chooses one of her sweater dresses. She has many of them, she realizes, receiving one each year from her father. It is usually at her behest, where she prints one out from the internet, giving her dad specifics on how to go about buying it. It’s her one indulgence each year, aside from the obligatory underwear, bras, and embarrassing feminine things she buys for herself and hides in a box, allowing her father to wrap because he wants her to open even the most mundane presents. 

She usually wears her green, velvet sweater dress for the party, bordered with a red and white striped, candy cane collar, adorned with black tights and kitten heeled booties. She wears holiday wreath earrings, and she mimics the same make up style she has for her concerts, with a little blush, mascara, eyeliner, and lip gloss. 

Cloud teases her about her sticking with traditions, and he’s right. It inspires her to choose a different sweater, and to break the rules like he does—it’s senior year, after all, and that, if anything, gives her reason to try. 

She chooses a dark, navy blue sweater dress that is strewn with candy canes and snowflakes stitched into the soft, cottony material. It hugs her a little better this year, having been a size too big when she bought it. She had loved it too much to return it. 

It settles across her chest without the puff of extra fabric, and Tifa admits that she has grown a little bit over the last two years. Whether that is a good thing or not, Tifa can’t decide. Sometimes, she embraces it. Other times, she absolutely despises it. 

Today, she’s proud of it. 

She slips on the same black tights and booties. She spends too much time painting her face with make up, and halfway through her mascara, she absently wonders if Cloud will like her outfit. 

It breaks her concentration for a moment before she resettles her position in front of her bathroom mirror, adding a few additional swipes of the mascara wand. 

She always cares about what Cloud thinks. This isn’t any different, but it does make her stomach flip at the thought of Cloud thinking, perhaps, that she’s pretty tonight. Secretly, she’s come to the conclusion that she _wants_ him to believe she’s attractive. She wants him to see her as a potential prospect. He’s been so elusive and apathetic about relationships with girls. She imagines what her friend, Ronnie, had told her in passing the other day.

“Cloud Strife is _cute,”_ she had said, looking pointedly at Tifa. “And you guys hang out _a lot._ What’s up with you two, Teef?”

Tifa had spluttered, laughing. “Nothing. He’s my friend.”

Ronnie had just raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s all?”

“Really,” she answered, nodding. 

“Hm…okay,” Ronnie said, eyeing where Cloud was slouched by his locker down the hall. Tifa knew that look on Ronnie’s face. And Ronnie had mentioned it before, how she was one of the girls who vocalized interest in Cloud. Something about how elusive and _bad boy_ he seemed. “I might talk to him, then.”

Tifa hid her frown, smiling instead. “Sure. Whatever.”

Tifa glances over herself in the mirror. Ronnie’s very pretty. She has olive skin and hazel eyes. Her hair is thick and black, and she’s lean from soccer. 

Tifa bites her lip before choosing her gloss. It doesn’t matter. Ronnie is her friend, and Cloud is her friend, and she will be happy with whatever makes _them_ happy. 

Still, even through that, she hopes Cloud likes her dress. 

* * *

The party begins at 7:00 pm. Which really means it starts at 7:30 pm. Tifa had told Cloud to wear something festive. He had merely grunted in response. 

They agreed on going together since they lived so close. Cloud walks over right when Tifa is stuffing her backseat with her offerings for the party, including sugar cookies and chocolates all layered on a tray.

“You didn’t bake those, too, did you?” Cloud calls over as she closes the door of the car. 

She glances up, smiling when she sees him. “No, I _bought_ them, this time.”

He raises a brow at her. He smirks at her answer. “Store bought? Never thought you’d take shortcuts.”

She rolls her eyes at him, laughing, and scrutinizes his attire. He’s wearing a plain green t-shirt with three-quarter sleeves, his nice, dark wash jeans, and his sneakers. 

He doesn’t have his cap on, nor does he have a hoodie. This time, she can see the definition of his arms against the stretched fabric of his sleeves, and she can admire the slight swell of his chest. The shirt looks like it’s well worn, and it must be half a size too small for him. _He must have had it when he was scrawny,_ she supposes.

“I told you to be festive,” she teases gently.

Cloud looks down at his shirt. “It’s green.”

She shakes her head at him. “I’ll give you that.” She juts her thumb at her car. “You ready to go?”

He nods, coming around to the passenger side and taking a seat. She slips into the driver’s seat, and they journey the few short minutes it takes to Ashley’s house in the northern part of the neighborhood. 

She lives in a home that is not much bigger than Tifa’s. It is decorated finely, with garlands, wreaths, and ornaments hanging along the chimney mantel. They have their Christmas tree up, glittering and sparkling and lit up with a rainbow of lights. The kitchen holds all kinds of finger foods, from sweets to savory bites, punch and eggnog and other refreshments. Festive music spills from the standing speaker with Ashley’s phone plugged into the port. 

Several classmates are there, already, congregating in the kitchen or the living room, drinking, eating, or holding plates of snacks. 

Ashley squeals when Tifa walks through the door, running up to her and hugging her. 

“Yay, you’re here!” she says, completely delighted. “And you brought the tray! You’re the best!”

“Not sure if you needed it,” Tifa says, gesturing to all the food.

Ashley blows a raspberry. “There is never enough food, Teef.”

Tifa follows her into the kitchen, and she smiles at Cloud, motioning for him to follow. He hesitates before he slowly making his way behind them.

Ashley notices his presence once she sets the tray down in what she deems an acceptable spot on the counter. 

“Oh, Strife!” she exclaims. “Tifa told me you were coming, but I didn’t believe her.”

Tifa sighs at her. “Cloud comes around when he wants to,” she says. “Right, Cloud?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. There was no way I could miss _your_ party, Ashley.”

Ashley purses her lips at him, placing her hands on her hips. “It’s an honor, truly.”

Cloud smirks. “I’ll be sure to sell all my illicit drugs while I’m here.”

Ashley’s cheeks redden at that. “Tifa told you?”

Tifa ducks her head, sending Cloud a light glare. He smiles at her in response. 

“I…thought it was funny,” Tifa admits. “I had to tell him you thought that.”

Ashley shakes her head, sighing. “Okay, well, yeah. Don’t sell your drugs, Strife.”

“I’ll try to keep my business discreet,” he says. 

Ashley huffs, grabbing a red solo cup and scooping a generous amount of punch from the bowl. “Hilarious. Honestly, I don’t know what Tifa sees in you.”

“Lucky me,” Cloud says. 

Cloud glances at her when he says it, and Tifa blushes, looking away.

“Ugh,” Ashley answers, beginning to walk out of the room. “I’ll be in the living room, Teef. Come join us when you wanna!” She points at Cloud. “And you, don’t bother.”

Cloud only smirks at her back as she leaves. Tifa’s mouth parts. “Ashley! She’s usually so nice.”

“Not to me,” Cloud says, shrugging at her. “Ever since the Mitch fiasco, she’s hated my guts because I was right about him cheating.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous.” Tifa huffs. “I thought she was over that. She never mentioned anything.”

“Probably because she knows we’re friends,” he says, coming to stand beside her at the counter. He leans against it. 

“Maybe you’re right.” She bites her lip, looking up at him. “I’m sorry. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

“You know it doesn’t,” he smirks. “I couldn’t give a shit.”

“Cloud,” she reprimands, shaking her head. “Of course you don’t.” 

They decide to grab a few cups and fill it with the punch, sipping on it and hanging out in the kitchen with each other. 

“They don’t usually have alcohol at this party,” Tifa tells him, glancing at the entrance of the kitchen as more and more people arrive. A few slip in and out of the room, grabbing a snack or a drink, chatting with each other. The music thumps in the background and covers most of the conversation between the groups. “Ashley told me she was going to do her best to get some, since it’s the last party she’s going to host. She called it the last chance at celebrating together.” Tifa shakes her head. “We still have graduation.”

“You gonna drink any?” he asks her, giving her a raised eyebrow in question.

Tifa’s thought about this a few times over the week. To drink or not to drink? She knows the peer pressure is going to be nearly intolerable. She’ll more than likely take one gulp of whatever Ashley gets her hands on, but she can’t drink any more than that. She promised her dad. 

She glances up at Cloud as he takes a pull from his cup. She’s only gotten tipsy once, with Ashley, Ronnie, and a few other of the cheerleading troupe after a football game. It had made her intensely giggly, lighter, bubbly, and not much else. 

What if she got like that around Cloud? He’d probably think she was a loony. Or very weird. She’s not sure. She doesn’t know how he’d react to her.

“I dunno,” she answers eventually. “Ashley is persuasive. Probably a sip or two, but I don’t want to drink any more than that.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Cloud says, tilting his head. “Just because Ashley wants you to join her doesn’t mean you have to say yes.”

“I know,” Tifa says, sighing. “Will you drink?”

“Nah,” he says. “Not at a party like this.”

“Why?” she asks. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“A little,” he shrugs. “Drinking isn’t my thing.”

“Oh,” Tifa says, leaning closer. “What is your thing?”

“Drugs, obviously.” He smiles at her. 

“That’s right. Let me know when you want to do a line in the bathroom,” she teases. 

He scoffs a laugh, glancing out into the crowd amassing in the kitchen. “My thing is people watching.”

Tifa looks at him, curiosity burgeoning within her again. She didn’t know this. 

“People watching?”

“Yeah,” he says, gesturing to a group in front of them. “Like that guy? He’s been trying to decide on what to put on his plate for about five minutes.”

Tifa laughs. “Really?” She follows his gesture. She finds the person in question almost immediately. She watches as he struggles for a minute more before finally taking a large handful of chocolates. 

“And that girl?” Cloud says, indicating a girl near the wall, talking to a boy. “I’m guessing she’s probably been trying to break up with him for the past ten minutes.”

Tifa blinks, watching the girl, Becca—from her history class—standing by her boyfriend, Charlie. They’ve been dating for two years, a significant time almost unheard of in most high school relationships. But…breaking up?

Tifa watches them for the next half minute, realizing that Cloud might be right. She takes a sharp breath. “I can’t believe it!” she whispers loudly when she sees Charlie’s face begin to crumble. “I thought they’d stay together forever.”

Cloud merely shrugs. “High school, right? What lasts?”

Tifa looks up at him, feeling a clawing, sudden burn of hope, and the word to answer his question.

_Us._

She takes a big slurp of her punch to staunch the thought. When she swallows, she frowns and says, “Not a lot.”

A moment later, Tifa hears her name being screamed from the living room. 

“Teeeefaaaaa! Get in here! Our song is on!” 

Tifa cringes at her name before laughing. It sounds like Miranda, another of her cheerleading troupe. She turns to Cloud. “I think I have to go or else they’ll drag me. Wanna come?”

“Uh…sure,” he says, pushing off the counter. She smiles and finds a pathway through the kitchen, Cloud following behind her. When they get nearer to the living room, Cloud says, “I’ll be here,” stopping at the edge of the open space of the room. Tifa frowns a little.

“Are you sure?”

“Definitely,” he answers.

She hesitates for a long few seconds before nodding. “But…okay. I’ll be right back.”

Cloud shakes his head. “You don’t have to babysit me, Tifa. I’ll be fine here.”

“But—“ she tries. 

“Have fun,” he says, pointing behind her. She goes to turn, only for a hand to grip her wrist, pulling her toward the couch. 

“There you are!” Miranda cries, stuffing her on the couch with the other girls. “Where have you been!”

Tifa gets pulled into the tide of her girlfriends’ arms, absorbed and altogether ensconced by them. It always happens this way, her attention being diverted by multiple people, the conversation fast and wild and humorous and lively. 

She looks up over them, catching Cloud’s eye across the room whenever she can. She’s always met by one of his softer smiles or she’ll see him doing his people watching, solitary against the wall, leaning so casually he might as well be part of Ashley’s house decorations. 

Sometimes, she’ll begin staring, the conversation a muddle surrounding her, only to be snapped out of it by a squeal or a screech. 

Tifa tries to make excuses to find her way back to Cloud—to at least check in and _not_ babysit, as he had called it—but she is pulled and tugged in a thousand different directions, the conversations diverted, more people crowding around, louder music, heavier laughter. 

Before Tifa knows it, she loses sight of Cloud within the hour. 

She glances around, disentangling herself from the different groups of people. She can’t seem to find him anywhere. He’s not against the wall, he isn’t in a corner, he’s not hiding away in a little niche of his own away from everyone. 

Tifa pulls out her phone and opens up his contact. She debates texting him. Should she ask where he is? Or ask if he’s surviving the night? Her fingers hover over the keys, and she sighs. She’s uncertain if she should. He might not even want to be bothered. He would find her if he wanted her, wouldn’t he? She slips her phone back into her dress pocket, continuing to feel woefully undecided before she is tugged into another conversation.

The next time she sees him, he isn’t looking for her. 

He’s looking at Ronnie.

She is standing close to him by the wall Tifa had searched moments before, grinning and blushing up at him. 

Tifa’s stomach plummets at the sight. She loses her breath momentarily, watching as Cloud looks and seems blasé and apathetic, his normal expression when he’s trying to _hide_ something. 

Ronnie runs a hand through her hair, and Cloud watches her fingers tangle within it. Ronnie says something, and Cloud smirks. He shakes his head, looking off to the side into the bodies scattered in the room.

Tifa waits for his glance, for his eyes to catch on hers. _Something._

They don’t. Cloud says another thing, and Ronnie grins, her head falling back in a laugh. Cloud isn’t reacting much, but Tifa thinks this might be his bravado. His show. He more than likely said something clever, sarcastic, and witty, like he always does. Why’d she ever think he’d struggle? Just because he doesn’t like crowds, and just because he doesn’t care about talking to people doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy himself without her. It doesn’t mean he can’t be good at conversation and…flirting. 

Perhaps it had been the other way around. _She_ didn’t think she’d enjoy herself without _him._

“So, Tifa, you wanna come with us to get _the goods?”_ Ashley asks, nudging her in her side. 

Tifa looks up, seeing Ashley’s devious smile. _The goods_ are code for alcohol. 

Honestly, the question couldn’t have arrived soon enough. In the moment, she doesn’t even care about the promise she made to her father. 

She absently thinks of Mrs. Bouchard and the old detention essay, about breaking and keeping promises. She nearly laughs. 

“Yes,” Tifa answers. 

Ashley grins and slips her hand into Tifa’s, pulling her away from the room and away from the beautiful, flirtatiously olive skin of Ronnie. 

Away from Cloud’s nonchalance. 

Away from the curling grip on her stomach. 

* * *

Tifa is paraded around like a favorite toy.

She is pulled to a group of people, or a single person, talks for a minute or two before she’s traded to another.

She laughs, she smiles, she shrugs, she rolls her eyes. She places her hands on her hips and scolds a few of the football players. She glances around, and she might be looking for him, but her eyes never seem to land on him before she’s directed into another conversation.

Cloud doesn’t mind it. Her cheeks are rosy, and she looks happy and content when she speaks. It’s only when she breaks off, finally on her own, when the glow around her fades. Her lips fall into a frown, and she glances around the room, searching. Cloud is about to push off the wall and go to her when someone says his name.

“Cloud?”

He stops, glancing behind him. It’s a girl. He’s seen her a few times before around campus. She hangs around Tifa, too.

“Uh, yeah?” he asks.

“Veronica,” she says, smiling. “Everyone calls me Ronnie. I’m friends with Tifa.”

“Oh,” he answers. “Yeah. Hey.”

She leans against the wall beside him. Cloud holds back a sigh, looking at Tifa. She’s looking at her phone, now, biting her lip.

“I never see you at these kinds of parties,” Ronnie says, and Cloud redirects his attention to her.

“That’s because I’m never at them,” Cloud deadpans.

She is undeterred by his blunt response. “I knew you were a loner,” she smiles. She runs a hand through her hair, her fingers disappearing into the void of it. There are so many strands, Cloud isn’t sure how she manages to unravel it from her fingers. “It’s kind of badass.”

Cloud’s never thought of being a loner being synonymous with _badass._ He smirks.

“Badass to hate people?”

Ronnie laughs, her head lolling back. Her neck is thin, her throat long and shimmery, as if she had put some kind of glowing powder on herself. When she looks back at him, her eyes are a light, green-brown color, bright and mischievous, and Cloud never really talks to any girls he thinks are _pretty._ He supposes she could count as pretty, but he’s experienced beauty in a different form. In the moment, he realizes that it’s ruined him—or maybe, has _helped_ him—for these types of interactions. He’s not nervous at all, when once he’d be anxious and tongue tied. He doesn’t care about what she has to tell him. Cloud thinks she might be trying to flirt with him, and he can’t make himself feel anything but the desperation for it to end.

He glances off to the side in the hopes that it will deter her. It doesn’t.

“Yeah, it is. It’s also kind of hot,” she says.

Cloud raises a brow. She’s being so blatant, leaning closer to him. He leans back.

“Not…really,” he tries, not sure what else to say.

“It’s mysterious,” she says, her lips curling up into a smile. “I’ve been at school with you for years, and I’ve never spoken this much to you before.”

 _There’s a reason for it,_ he thinks. He takes a sip of his newly replenished drink.

“Probably because I wasn’t interested,” he says.

Ronnie continues smiling. Cloud shifts his weight, glancing off into the room again. He notices a few bodies moving quickly between the crowds, and he realizes it’s Tifa when he spies the navy blue dress and the sparkle of her Christmas wreath earrings. He watches as she disappears into a side hallway with a couple of other girls.

“Well, what are you interested in?” she asks him, tilting her head up. Her eyes are large and wide, and she pouts her lips.

 _She’s trying to be cute,_ Cloud thinks, blinking. She _is_ flirting with him.

“Uh…” he says. “Someone else.”

At that, her smile immediately falls into a frown. “What?”

Cloud shrugs, taking another drink for something to do. “I’m interested in someone else. I don’t wanna waste your time. Find another guy.”

With that, he pushes off the wall and immerses himself into the crowd, getting away from her as quickly as possible. He glances back after a moment to make sure she isn’t following him. He breathes easy when he sees that she isn’t.

He sighs before he groans, running a hand over his face. He looks around for Tifa again, but he doesn’t see her. He loiters and lingers around, listening to the whistles and the rambunctious hollers of the party, sees a few of the boys bring in six packs of beer and one smuggling in a bottle of bourbon and pouring it into the eggnog.

The party begins to deteriorate into a messier, wilder shade, the later hours calling for pranks and games and the _real_ face of the night.

Someone begins to place mistletoe above every single doorway on the first floor. Some boys, already drunk, pull a girl to them and kiss them, the crowd around them erupting into whoops and catcalls.

Others begin dancing with uncoordinated abandon, dragging friends with them. Few hide in the shadows and continue kissing, spurred on by the actions under the mistletoe.

Cloud watches it begin to unfold, remembering why he despises parties. How could he forget?

Eventually, Tifa reappears into the room with Ashley and two other girls. Her cheeks are red and glowing, and she’s laughing, then she’s giggling at something Ashley says, and then she’s laughing some more.

Cloud eyes Ashley and the other girl, who are both chittering to each other, too close with their lips in their ears, acting just about as drunk as Cloud’s seen anyone. Ashley slurps from her cup, and Cloud immediately knows they ran off to drink with each other.

He moves his eyes back to Tifa, and he gazes on as she stumbles but rights herself quickly. One of the boys shouts her name, gripping her wrists and pulling her to dance with him.

At first, Tifa shakes her head, placing a hand on her cheek. Then she begins to allow the boy to lead her into a ridiculous rhythm, and she laughs more than dances. She steps around him and around other people, somehow graceful with her limbs loosened and full of alcoholic fervor. She doesn’t last long with the boy who grabbed her—John, Cloud realizes. One of her old boyfriends. John watches Tifa closely—closer than Cloud likes—and he grins, moving to jump back into the dance with Tifa as she gets further and further away from him.

Tifa shakes her head at him, but she laughs. This only seems to spur John on, and he has the audacity to place his palm on the small of her back, attempting to lead her toward him. Tifa flits away, and Cloud realizes how tense he is once she’s freed herself from John’s grasp, calling something over to him. John blushes, and Tifa grins, glancing around the room. Whatever she had said halts John where he stands, and Cloud smirks, finally relaxing against the wall. Then he thinks better of it, standing up straighter and following behind Tifa as she meanders through the room. She’s quick—Cloud has a hard time keeping up with her as she weaves and dodges elbows and flying limbs. Cloud has to duck on occasion, endlessly amused by the chase.

Tifa taps a person’s shoulder, asking something. Unsatisfied by their answers, Tifa carries on to the next person, and the next, giving Cloud more chance to reach her.

When he gets close enough, Cloud hears his name.

“Hey, have you seen Cloud?” Tifa shouts above the music.

His stomach flips, and he can’t help his smile as he comes up behind her.

“Me?” he says.

Tifa whirls around, nearly losing her balance. Cloud automatically reaches out to steady her.

As soon as her eyes land on him, her eyes alight, and she blasts him with a grin. It reminds him of sunbeams, it’s so blinding.

“Cloud!” she yells. “There you are!”

She pounces on him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her chest rams into him, and he loses his breath, his arms coming around her to accept immediately, stepping a foot back and hitting someone behind them.

“You were looking?” he asks.

“Of course I was!” she says, pulling away. She places her hands on her hips. “I lost you earlier, then I found you, but…” she shakes her head. “Anyway. Hi.”

Cloud blinks at her words. They fall out of her fast and slurred. “Hi. I was looking for you, too.”

She looks utterly too pleased by this. “You were?”

“Yeah,” he says. “But I saw Ashley taking you somewhere.”

“Oh…” she answers, and as she stares up at him, he sees her eyes beginning to fog over. Abruptly, she grabs his hand. “Hey, c’mere.”

She tugs on him. He can do nothing but follow behind her.

“Tifa, what are you—“ he starts.

“Nothing, I just wanted to talk to you,” she says, leading them to an empty space by the wall. It’s along the hallway, most people congregating nearer the middle of the room. The lighting is dimmer, holding an orange, amber hue surrounding them. Off to their right is an alcove that leads to the stairs and a guest room. To their left opens up the kitchen, and it feels like music is spilling out from all the cracks in the house, swirling around them like a blanket.

She turns him so that his back is against the wall, and she stands in front of him. Her mouth is still holding a beatific smile, and the orange glow highlights the ridges of her cheeks and the softness of her features. Cloud loses his breath at the sight.

 _I’m ruined,_ he thinks again.

“So…you wanted to talk?” he croaks, eyeing her smile.

“Yes. Cloud,” she says, placing an open palm against his chest. His name is velvety against her mouth, alcohol soaking them and wrapping around him like a vice. “I wanted to tell you…I like you.”

She says it with heavy meaning, but the drink interlacing her words makes him question her seriousness. He quirks a brow at her, willing his heart to relax.

“Uh, yeah, Tifa,” he says, placing his hand on top of hers. It is warm and magnificent against his chest. “We’re friends.”

“Yes, but I like you,” she says again, her fingernails curling into the cotton of his shirt. “Oh,” she says, noticing his hand on hers. “I like your hand, too. I like when you hold it. I want to hold it more.”

“Tifa,” he starts, glancing around the room before he eyes her, watching her movements. “What did Ashley make you drink? Spiked eggnog?”

She smiles, wrinkling her nose.”No. I had wine. It’s gross. I don’t know why people drink it for fun.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he says, absently running his thumb across her knuckles. He stops when he realizes what he’s doing. Her grip doesn’t relent. “She was too persuasive, huh?”

Tifa shakes her head. When she looks up at him, her eyes are glassy. “No. Not that. They say it gives you courage. I wanted to see if it was true.”

He frowns. “Why’d you need courage?”

Her lips spread in a slow, deliberate smile. She points to something above them, off to the side. “So I could ask if you wanted to kiss me under the mistletoe.”

Cloud follows the line of her finger, seeing the offending plant. He is suddenly hit with her real meaning.

_I like you._

“I…Tifa…” he stutters, his heart beginning to fly behind his chest. “You want me to kiss you?”

“Mm,” she hums, leaning into him. “Under the mistletoe. So it doesn’t have to _mean_ anything. You know? We can stay friends instead.”

Cloud blinks, trying to understand her. He’s breathless.“So it doesn’t have to mean anything?”

She nods. “Yes. So we can stay friends. So we can kiss and go back to normal. So you can…I dunno. Do what you wanna do.”

His eyebrows furrow deeper. His heart pounds so hard that it aches. “That’s…what you want? To…stay friends?”

She bites her lip. She seems to contemplate her answer with all the heaviness she can muster. Cloud watches her face, nearly seeing her decision come to it’s conclusion. When she looks up at him again, something stirs behind her eyes. There is so much certainty in them, they cut into him like glass.

“No,” she says. She digs her hand harder into his shirt before she releases it, opening her palm. She drags it down his stomach, and Cloud’s breath hitches.

“No,” she repeats herself. “I want to kiss you all the time.”

She reaches up with her other hand before Cloud can fully absorb her words. She wraps her palm around his neck and pulls him down.

That’s the first time Cloud kisses Tifa. He will never forget it.

Her fingers thread into the hair at the nape of his neck. Her other hand slides up from his stomach to his chest to his shoulder, the path it makes a fiery trail. Her touch is mesmerizing, but it is only a supplement to her lips.

It’s the way she presses him so closely against her, her body curving and settling into his edges and lines, molding to fit. Her lips are soft and slick, warm and terribly enticing and rich and wonderful, and she kisses him with an intensity he’s never known before. It reminds him of the itch he has to create his pictures—of sprinting up a hill to see the sunrise—but it’s so much more than that.

His hands land on her hips before they slip around her back. She makes a little moan into his mouth, and Cloud sees nothing but stars.

So many stars, like she’s punching the daylights out of him. He almost feels sick from the indulgence of it—from the tentative touch of her tongue, how it evolves into a bolder and messier fight with his own. They attempt to get closer and closer, Tifa pressing and pressing, Cloud grasping at her hips and tilting his head. _How to get closer,_ he thinks. Wanting. Knowing.

He needs to be closer.

“Tifa!” someone shouts behind them. It tries to break through the fog of pleasure in Cloud’s mind, but he ignores it, not wanting to end it. “Oh, my god, Tifa!”

She breaks away from him at that, but she doesn’t turn around. Instead, she stays near him, their chests heaving and pulsing as they catch their breath. She looks up at him, her lips nearly as dark red as her eyes, swollen and parted. All of her lip gloss is gone, replaced with the wetness of kisses.

Her gaze punctures his lungs. They are half-lidded and resplendent. She stares at him and he stares back before she turns to glance over her shoulder. Cloud can’t seem to let her go, keeping his hands around her waist as she answers her caller.

It’s Ashley who stands there, her hands on her hips and her eyes wide and disbelieving.

“You and…and Strife? Are you serious, Tifa?” Ashley splutters, looking back and forth between them.

Her words wouldn’t bother him had it only been directed _at_ him. Since it’s Tifa she’s talking to, Cloud begins to scowl. He tightens his arms around her.

“Yes,” Tifa simply says. Cloud’s anger lifts in a sudden release. “I’m serious.”

Cloud’s lips begin to pull up in a smirk. He watches Ashley’s face become red.

“Well, um, okay! I’m just…I didn’t know how drunk you were.”

Tifa smiles and says nothing. Cloud feels stares on them throughout the room. He glances around to find Mitch not so discreetly eyeing them. He sees a few of the other football players looking pointedly away.

His eyes even catch on Ronnie’s before she blushes, her eyes dashing quickly down to the floor.

The rest are still dancing to the music, holding their red solo cups aloft, and not giving a fuck about anything around them.

Some couples hide in corners, making out.

Before a few minutes ago, Cloud would have sneered, not understanding why they couldn’t take their public affection elsewhere so one one else had to experience their sloppy, disgusting intimacy.

Now, Cloud gets it.

Tifa turns back into his arms. Her chest presses into his again, and she says, “I didn’t kiss you just because I’m tipsy. I kissed you because I wanted to.”

He pushes his forehead against hers. He can smell the sweet tang of wine on her breath. “You didn’t need to drink to kiss me. You could have just asked.”

She makes a noise. “No. I definitely needed it.”

Cloud huffs a laugh. Everything about her is so unendingly, tragically wonderful, and his mind reels at the fact that she wanted to kiss him, and that he’s holding her, and that there is a seal of heat between their bodies.

“I like you, too,” he whispers.

“Oh,” she breathes, pressing into him further. Cloud can feel the softness of her, cushioned by her sweater dress. It is unexplainable and divine. “Good,” she smiles. “I think you kissed all the alcohol out of me.”

Smirking, he says, “Did I?”

She nods, bumping his nose with hers. “Yeah. I think so. I dunno,” she says, dipping her lips closer. They graze one another, and Cloud squeezes her waist.

“If you still don’t know, I guess we need to make sure,” he says, tilting his head further and kissing her again. She accepts it fervently, and her mouth is so hot, her breath so dark, Cloud thinks he could live here forever. His hands roam along her back. Her fingers lock around his neck. Cloud’s belly coils and tightens, and as they continue to press into each other, there is a delicate, blissful burning as they rub and shift.

Tifa makes a small little moan, and whispers, “My dad’s out of town on a business trip.”

Cloud’s ponderous heartbeat begins to ricochet.

“If you want to leave,” she murmurs. “Not that—I mean, I wasn’t trying to suggest—“

“Yeah. Let’s go,” he interrupts her, overtaken by the prospect of being alone. With her. In her bedroom.

Tifa huffs a breath, staring at him. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Their hands intertwine, and this time, Cloud leads her to the front door. His strides are purposeful and unrelenting. He feels as though if he doesn’t move quick enough, this will all shatter like one of his dreams.

He’ll open his eyes and wake up.

But he doesn’t. Not as he opens the door to her passenger seat, and not as he takes his spot behind the wheel. Not as they drive down the few blocks to her house. Not as Tifa touches his arm and his palm and fingertips, distracting him, making him taut and nervous and sick again—so sick in the best way.

Not even as they park in her driveway.

He turns the key, shutting off the engine, before he hesitates. He looks at her, saying, “Tifa,” but he stops. 

She’s already looking at him, unbuckling her seatbelt before sitting up on her knees, leaning over the middle console. She kisses him, reaching up with her right hand to cup his face.

He grunts from the suddenness of it, one hand landing on her ribcage. He can feel the base of her heart fluttering beneath it, and he realizes belatedly how close his thumb is to the underside of her breast. He freezes, his hand stilling, his entire body reacting to the kiss and the caress of her hands.

“Oh, Cloud,” she mumbles against his lips. “You can touch me.” She presses her other hand on top of his,and it is pulsing and electric. It’s the piano lesson all over again, except more. Always more. As she kisses him, she brings his hand up to cup her breast. She breathes out shakily as his palm holds her, vocalizing a small, tortured whine. Cloud stills before he comes back to life, gently squeezing and running his thumb along her, memorizing the sensation. She is soft and heavy, and he can feel the gentle pucker of her skin encased in cotton.

“This is okay?” he asks between kisses.

“Yes,” she hisses. “This is very okay.”

She is a storm over him. She tilts her head, pressing her lips so hard, their teeth clack together. He groans at the feeling and blindly reaches for the chair’s latch, pushing it back and giving them more space. She doesn’t notice or seem to care, continuing to wind her arms around him and pull him viciously into her.

She gasps against him, kissing him, their mouths opening, tongues solid and slick as they slip against each other’s. Cloud gently tugs at her hip with his other hand, and Tifa breaks away from his lips for a moment, maneuvering herself over the console.

There is not a lot of room in her car, but with the readjustment of the chair, it’s enough for her to straddle his lap. He is nearly knocked unconscious by the welcome of her legs and by the length of her arms around his neck. She sizzles against him, so petite but powerful.

His back presses hard into the seat, and he is wrapped up in her body. One hand still on her breast and the other falling to her bottom. He experiments, grabbing the fullness of her butt, and her hips rock forward. She moans, and his breath comes out thick and weighty.

“Cloud…we’ll have…more room…in the house,” she whispers between kisses.

“Yeah…” he huffs, reluctant to let her go. “Okay…we can…”

She turns and reaches for the door handle, pushing the door open. As she turns her head, her neck is on full display, and he doesn’t think about it as he leans forward to kiss her underneath her jaw.

She moans, stopping her movements. “ _Cloud.”_ She wraps her hands around his head to keep him there. “Mm.”

“Tifa,” he growls, his voice thick and foreign to his ears. “I’ve liked you a long time.”

He’s not sure what makes him confess. It must be the thick onslaught of emotion. Tifa Lockhart, in his lap. That’ll make him confess to anything.

She makes a sweet little whine. “Me, too.”

He kisses her neck for a while longer before a chill sweeps into the car. She tightens her legs around him, and Cloud finally manages, “Okay, let’s go inside.”

They unravel from each other, but they stay close as they walk up to the front door. Tifa takes out her key and stumbles with it for a moment, Cloud placing his hands on her hips, standing behind her.

“I—you’re—“ she starts, finally pushing the door open. “I’ve, um, never done this before.”

“Me either,” he admits, following her inside. He shuts the door and locks it, staring at her as she turns toward him. “I…uh…”

She begins blushing. Her hair is in a wild tangle around her head. It is a frenzied halo from their kissing. Her dress is rumpled, creased around the hem.

Cloud is at once terrified and at complete ease. His heart is hammering, and his hands are shaking, but he can’t imagine being here with anyone else, standing in a dark entryway of a house and feeling the strain of want against his jeans and in his stomach.

He strides forward and kisses her, wrapping his hands around her waist. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispers. “We can do whatever you want. Uh, or…maybe not everything, but…”

Tifa giggles against his lips. “You’re right. We’ll figure it out. C’mon.”

She slides her hands to his wrist and pulls him toward her staircase. They run up the steps, fingers interlaced, and she leads him to her bedroom. She closes her door behind them, and there is something tantalizingly final about the action. Goosebumps raise on Cloud’s neck, and his eyes roam around her darkened room, catching on a few decorations—pictures and posters, a few shoes up against the wall—before his attention is immediately diverted, Tifa coming up to kiss him again.

They fall back onto the bed in their vigor, and Tifa laughs into him. He smiles before he’s overcome by their position with each other, Tifa’s body pressing into him from her mouth to her thighs. Her legs butterfly out around his hips, and there is no ounce of space in between them. The heat is beginning to boil, and while her room is nearly frigid from the cold December evening, Cloud only feels the rush of hot blood in his stomach.

When they rub together at their hips, Cloud sees a white burst of pleasure across his eyes. He rolls them over, pressing her into the mattress, and begins to kiss her neck, again. He is suddenly gaining a favorite part to kiss on her body other than her lips. Then he begins to wonder about the rest of her—about all the things he had thought in his bed, on occasion, or when he’d draw her. When he’d create the swell of her breasts or the sleek lines of her legs. The showers he had to take to relieve himself. The embarrassing reactions from his body at the mere thought of her sleeping beside him in his bed.

“Cloud,” she hums. “Have you ever…um…”

He eases up from her at her hesitation. Her eyes are half-lidded, but she darts her eyes away from his stare.

“This is an embarrassing question,” she mumbles.

He smiles. “Ask me.”

Her chest heaves underneath him, and he resists the urge to kiss her again.

“Have you ever…watched porn?”

At that, he smirks and comes forward, kissing her below her jaw again. “Yeah.”

Her legs spread a bit wider underneath him, and she sighs in his ear. “O-oh.”

“Have you?”

“…um, once.”

He pulls back. “Tifa, _you’ve_ watched porn?”

He’s mostly teasing her. Her cheeks redden, and she shakes her head at him.

“Just once!”

“Why only once?” he asks, kissing below her ear. She fidgets before she relaxes again.

“It…felt wrong to do it. You know?”

“No,” he answers. “It never felt wrong to me.”

She huffs a little sigh again, and Cloud watches her, smiling, while she shifts underneath him.

“Did you not like it?” he asks, his bashfulness about the subject completely overruled by her reactions.

“I—no, I mean, I did like it! I think. I don’t know, it was weird, right?” she says quickly, stumbling over her words. She closes her eyes and looks away from him.

“Maybe,” he says, attempting to catch her eye. “What kind did you watch?”

“I-I don’t know, the normal kind?” she stutters. “It was…like we are.”

The thought immediately has Cloud imagining them both naked, becoming closer and closer and closer. 

When Tifa catches his eyes, her embarrassment is bright and loud in her stare. The longer they do, the embarrassment begins to fade. It is a slow decline, and Cloud’s smirk vanishes from his face. Her eyes begin to shine, the brightness turning sharper. Her mouth parts and she bites the inside of her lip. Cloud can see her reaching his level of desire.

The embarrassment is soon gone altogether.

“That’s not weird,” he breathes.

She leans up, but she gently pushes him back. “H-hang on,” she says. “Let me do something.”

She brings her legs out from around him, pushing her dress up slightly before reaching underneath it, tugging and pulling. Cloud blinks, nearly dying as he sees her remove the slip of her underwear and throwing it on the floor.

Then she lies back, placing herself in the same position she had been moments before. Cloud is still sitting up, his neck flooding with his heartbeat, his gaze darting to the hem of her dress now around the tops of her thighs, and _knowing_ she is bare underneath.

“I…uh,” he says, swallowing. Her chest heaves with another deep breath, and she reaches up and brings him down to her, kissing him over and over.

“Tifa…” he drawls. “Do you…want me to…”

Her hand falls down his arm to his hand. Their fingers curl together before she looks up at him.

“Um, you can…touch me, if you want,” she says, placing his hand on her thigh, along the area of where her tights end, and where her dress hem still resides, teasing. “I mean, if you…not that I…”

He kisses her, his thumb caressing the smooth skin of her thigh. “I wanna touch you, Tifa.”

Her breath is shaky as she nods, holding his face close to hers. “O-okay.”

His hand slips underneath her dress. He trembles a little, feeling his heartbeat thrumming in his fingertips, and he feels the almost painful pressure in his jeans, but _this._

Tifa underneath him, her eyes half-closed, tense and shuddering against his hand, shatters any and all visions he had of this in his dreams.

“Teach me what you like,” he says. “Because I don’t…I don’t really know anything.”

“I don’t know what I like,” she admits. “But I…I um, know one thing.”

She reaches down and places her hand on top of his, gently sliding him up against skin he’s never felt before. He breathes out when his fingers immerse in the warmth, there, so different and lively, hot and immense.

She whimpers, and her eyes close as she places him against a spot. It is tight and puckered against the pad of his fingers. She gasps when they land there together, and she lets her hand linger for a moment before taking it away.

“There. That spot. That’s what I know,” she whispers, and her hips sway with his pressure. He’s almost afraid to move his hand, but he’s enthralled with how her body reacts, sliding his fingers toward and away from the area she showed him. Her head extends back, neck long and smooth under the moonlight. It presses into the pillow, and her eyes flutter open to connect with his.

He watches her expression as he slides his fingers against her skin. The lower he goes, the wetter his fingers become, and she inhales sharply when he strokes up again, slick and frictionless.

It is almost like when he draws, he thinks. He fills in the spaces with his lines. He visualizes a picture and details it, shading and cross-hatching the shadows, bringing to life what he’s admired and seen, his emotions and feelings and expressions. He observes the pinch in Tifa’s eyebrows, the tip of her tongue underlying her front teeth, how she catches eyes with him occasionally, gasping when she does, her hips lifting when he hits her with more pressure. Cloud ducks forward, kissing the column of her neck and tasting the few beads of sweat that have formed above her collarbone.

“Cloud…” she whispers. One hand reaches behind his head. The other blindly grabs at the comforter surrounding her, gripping and squeezing. Her nails snag against it.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” she mutters, succinct and sharp. “I’m…mm.”

Cloud continues stroking her underneath her dress, and he brings his other hand up, following the line of her thigh to her hip, his palm coming around her ribcage.

She begins making noises Cloud has never heard before. They are guttural, as though they are clawing their way from deep inside. Cloud bites her neck, and she bucks her hips, panting louder and louder.

Cloud reaches further with his other hand, finding her bra. He hooks a finger underneath it, hitting soft, smooth skin, and Tifa curls up, pushing her chest into his palm.

“Cloud…I’m feeling…” she starts, her voice spilling out of her at a higher pitch. “Oh…I don’t know.”

Cloud strokes his fingers higher to hit that taut, tense pucker of skin. Tifa keens.

“Right there?” he asks, and her face pinches, pressing into the pillow.

“Y-yes,” she says. “Don’t—don’t stop.”

He feels her inner thighs beginning to tremble. He follows the press of her hips, and he circles around the spot, over and over. Her eyes open once to find his, and it’s the way she looks with her mouth slightly parted, her neck corded and her cheeks flushed, eyes blurred with incredible pleasure, that makes Cloud nearly lose it, too.

Her eyes fall shut in a moment, and her thighs close tight around his hand. Her legs roll to one side, and she brings her hands up to her face. Cloud regrets missing her expression as she hides herself, but the arch of her back and the cry she makes is enough to satisfy him for weeks.

He slowly slips his hand away, and she loosens the tight squeeze of her thighs. She breathes heavily, catching her breath. Cloud wipes his hand on his jeans, aching and dizzy from the entire ordeal.

“ _Cloud,”_ she whispers, her voice husky and rich, and it’s like how she said it when she taught him at the piano. She pushes herself up, and he realizes her arms are a little shaky as she reaches for him. She pulls him in close, kissing him deeply. “I’ve never felt that before in my _life.”_

She goes to sit in his lap, kissing him again. She wraps her body around him, just like they had been in the car. Cloud thinks he might break the zipper in his jeans from how unbelievably aroused he is.

“I…uh…good,” he stutters lamely, too distracted by the vision of her body crumbling underneath his fingers and the friction of her in his lap.

She must know, because she drags a hand down the front of his shirt. Her hand lands boldly on the button of his pants.

“Do you…I mean, um, what about what you like?” she asks, her cheeks still rosy, but her eyes vibrant and full. “Can I make you feel that way, too?”

Cloud sighs sharply. “Fuck, Tifa,” he says, smashing their lips together. “I bet you’d just have to touch me once before I lose it.”

She laughs, and it is throaty and elegant, and—and—Cloud thinks he’s on his way to a heart attack.

“I wanna touch you, too,” she says, and she flicks her fingers on his button, undoing it. She reaches the zipper and tugs it down. Immediately, she slips her hand underneath the band of his boxers, and Cloud groans, jerking back. He holds himself up on his elbows, unable to keep his eyes open.

“I—ah—Tifa…” he tries, breathing heavily. “Please, I…”

“What do you like?” she asks, and her hands squeeze him, staring at his arousal, and Cloud is blinded. He closes his eyes again.

“J-just…um…” he starts, but he’s unable to say anything. Instead, he curls his hand around hers, and he begins to move them together.

“Like this?” she whispers, her grip tightening under his direction. He nearly chokes as she finds a rhythm, so easily. So simply.

“Yeah,” he says, letting her go. He watches her fondle him, rubbing the pleasure into him, and his heart gallops against his sternum. He’s beginning to feel that burning sickness, again, that ache, that endless build. He loses his breath, and when he doesn’t think anything could get better, Tifa’s other hand comes up and reaches underneath his shirt. He feels her hand cresting over his stomach, and he hisses at the dual contact.

“T-Tifa,” he says, and it sounds like he’s begging. He’s not really sure what he’s begging for, only that he’s covered by that deep-rooted bliss.

She pushes up his shirt until at least half his torso is on display, and while she’s still caressing him, she leans forward to kiss his stomach. He feels his hips lift. He reaches up to grip a hand in his hair, roughly running his palm through it.

“I—“ he tries.

“I love your body, Cloud,” she says, and she finds his hip bone, parting her lips and giving it a deep suck, her tongue pressing into him. Cloud sees stars for the second time that night. They infiltrate his vision.

 _This is it,_ he thinks. _This is the end._

His stomach clenches under her touch. He groans. “I’m—I’m going to—“

He holds it back as best he can. It’s only when she lifts her lips from his hip and moves to his arousal that he grips the sheets desperately. She does something he’ll never forget.

She kisses the tip of him.

That’s all it takes for Cloud to lose it completely, the stars to burst along his eyes, and the tightest coil in his stomach to unravel, all over him and all over her hand. She smiles, not minding in the least. She leans over to kiss his mouth.

That’s the first time Cloud and Tifa truly touch each other.

It is far from the last.


	6. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE EVERYONE. <3 I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to the comments, but trust me when I say I adore ALL OF THEM. You all know I do. I cherish them and hold them close to my heart. Thank you all so much and I am so happy you are enjoying this story!!
> 
> ENDLESS LOVE TO: (you guessed it) Somebodys_Nightmare. She's the best person there ever was. SOUL SISTER. The world is a good place, sometimes. 
> 
> Happy reading! I hope you continue to enjoy this! Stay safe, love one another, and happy holidays. Love you all! <3

Tifa thinks about that night often.

It feels like an enchantment. If she is not thinking about a topic that requires the majority of her concentration—like studying—she thinks about Cloud.

Yet, even when she _is_ thinking about a topic that requires the majority of her concentration, she thinks about Cloud.

She’ll have a book open or an equation sheet in front of her, and her eyes unfocus, and she places her chin on her palm, drifting to another time and another place.

She doesn’t only think about the night of the Christmas party. She thinks specifically about Cloud, too. She thinks about his smile or his dumb jokes or his hair. She’ll think about how much she loves how he wears his cap backwards, and how careless he is about appearance—and how it is somehow perfect all the same.

She’ll think about him drawing, and it quickly evolves into her thinking about his fingers, and how he uses his fingers, and how he makes her feel with his fingers.

Tifa sighs dreamily, unable to help herself. Her stomach warms at the thought of him. She smiles out into space. She combs her hair for five minutes longer than usual, caught up in her musings.

The Sunday after the party, he had texted her.

_Hey. Last night was okay, right?_

She had smiled at it, responding immediately.

_Yes. It was perfect._

When she saw him that next Monday, meeting him underneath the bleachers, he had glanced up before she arrived. He blushed and stood when she walked up to him.

“Uh, hey,” he said, glancing over her. His blush deepened. “I, uh…”

His bashfulness made her a little bashful, too. She started blushing, just because. She began to get nervous.

“Hey,” she said.

He shifted his weight, seeming to hesitate. Then he came forward and gave her a quick, chaste kiss. He stepped away, blushing again.

Tifa blinked, her smile becoming bigger.

“Sorry, I don’t know…if…” he tried.

Tifa giggled, coming forward to kiss him again. “It’s good to see you.”

The tension along his skin disappeared. His shoulders relaxed.

“You, too,” he said, finally smiling.

After that, their routine went back to normal. They ate lunch together. They shared music. He drew. She studied.

But now, it was interspersed with knee bumps and finger grazes. There was a small fire kindled between them, burning and glowing every time they locked eyes, sat next to each other, or stole a kiss.

It’s been almost three whole weeks since that night. From Christmas break and going out of town to see family, school starting back up with a barrage of assignments, time has sped past like a stampede.

Tifa sighs, again, trying to finish her assignment. She gives it five whole minutes before she texts Cloud.

 _Hey,_ she sends.

 _Hey,_ he responds almost immediately.

_What are you doing?_

_Homework. You?_

_The same._

Tifa frowns, biting her lip. She decides to send another text.

_Can I ask you something kind of strange?_

_Sure,_ he says. _But I’ll probably laugh at you._

Tifa smiles, rolling her eyes.

_Uh huh, like always._

She rolls onto her back, pressing her phone to her stomach. She wonders if she could ask him this in person. She’s not sure if she’d have the courage when she’d want it. She lifts her phone and slowly begins to type her message.

_I’m having a hard time concentrating_

She frowns, deleting her message.

_Do you get distracted during the day_

She deletes that one, too. Frustrated, she eventually types out: _I think about you all the time._

She stares at the confession. Her stomach twinges at the words.

_I get really distracted. I find myself wondering what you’re doing throughout the day. You used to make mevery nervous, and I’ve realized I still get nervous when I’m around you. Not all the time, but sometimes._

She takes a breath, rereading her words. They frighten her. She’s not sure if she should send it. She’s about to backspace it all when Cloud sends a message.

_I’m kidding. I promise I won’t laugh._

He sends another in quick succession.

_You can ask me._

Tifa takes another breath, her stomach twisting around at his message. That decides it. Her thumb moves to the send button, and she hits it.

She realizes she didn’t send her question. She hurriedly types, _Sorry, that was different than what I meant to send._

She bites her lip before continuing. _I guess I was wondering if you feel this way, too. If it wasn’t just me._

Tifa is surprised when it doesn’t take him long to respond.

_It’s not just you. I feel this way. I feel every way you mentioned._

Her heart begins to pound harder as she reads his message.

_You’re on my mind constantly. I’m anxious right before I get to see you, but it goes away when we start talking. I feel like I’m going crazy. I want you around me all the time, but I never want to be around anyone ever._

Her face is beginning to become hot, her cheeks blistering at the words he’s sending her.

 _I guess that’s actually strange, right? Haha,_ he sends.

“No,” she says out loud in her room, breathlessly. “Not strange.”

 _It can’t be if I feel like that, too,_ she sends.

_Guess not._

Tifa stares up at her ceiling, realizing her palms are sweating. She feels a rush from the deep trenches of her stomach to her throat, down into the undersides of her arms and into her hands.

That’s the first time Tifa realizes what it’s like to begin falling in love.

* * *

Cloud fantasizes about Tifa more and more often.

Tifa tells him which weekends her father is out of town. He invites her over to his place for dinner frequently, and while they are strictly forbidden from closing his bedroom door, they make it a game to be as quiet as they can.

Cloud’s mom catches them only once.

Cloud counts his blessings. They had been fully clothed. Tifa had been wearing a dress, but she was straddling him, sitting up and laughing at something he had said. Cloud’s hands were on her thighs, right underneath her hem.

His mom had cleared her throat, and Cloud doesn’t remember moving faster in his life. Both had almost died from the tsunami of embarrassment, with his mother lightly scolding them but thanking them for keeping their clothes on.

Tifa hid her face in her hands. Cloud stared at the floor.

When Tifa had left, his mother came to stand in the doorway to his room, leaning against the doorjamb with her arms crossed.

Cloud had sighed. “Mom, I know.”

He was surprised when he looked up, finding his mother smiling.

“I know you know,” she said, her eyebrow raised. “But you have not been making it very discreet. You both sit so close at the dinner table, now. She comes over often. You watch her with the same look you have when you’re drawing.”

Cloud had gotten progressively redder. His hands interlace behind his neck.

“Uh…”

“I know you like her. But use _this_ one,” she said, pointing to her temple. Then she came forward and set a box on his nightstand. Cloud nearly fell over.

It was a box of condoms.

“Mom—“ he choked.

“I was eighteen once, too,” she said. “And I _do_ want to be a grandmother, but not this soon.”

Cloud stared at the box, then he turned to stare at the floor again, unable to look her in the eye.

“R-right, yeah, got it,” he mumbled.

“Thank you, sweetie,” she said before turning back into the hallway.

Cloud sits at his desk, now, thinking about the condoms that are now making their home in his nightstand. He rubs his hands over his face.

He had texted Tifa later that evening about it, once he recovered from nearly dying of shame.

_My mom bought me condoms._

Tifa had sent a thousand laughing faces.

_SHE DID NOT._

_She did._

_…is this her way of blessing us?_

Cloud had laughed at that. _I didn’t think of it that way. But yeah. She said she didn’t want to be a grandmother, yet._

_OMG. I hope she doesn’t hate me._

Cloud rolled his eyes. _She loves you._

_I don’t know if I can face her again after that._

_Tifa, it’s fine._

_I’ll make her one of the pie recipes she gave me._

Cloud shook his head, smiling.

_I’m sure she’ll enjoy that._

Ever since, they’ve teased the idea. They joke about the condoms all the time.

They’ve never done anything about it, though. They only continue touching.

Touching and touching and touching.

* * *

Weeks begin to pass quickly, January scuttling into February.

Cloud notices how her classmates react to their change in status. It seems nearly all of her friends saw them make out at the party. Cloud receives more looks and attention in the hallway. A few people say _hi_ to him, and it strikes him as odd, at first. He realizes shortly after that it is largely due to Tifa accepting him. People within her circle follow suit and do the same. Cloud is uncertain how to handle it, so he simply ignores it.

As time trudges along, Cloud and Tifa grow together.

Cloud takes her to the slab for a few lunches, showing her it isn’t as bad as she previously believed. They spend their time drawing pictures with someone else’s chalk. Cloud draws a blunt, and Tifa laughs heartily at that. Tifa tries her hand at drawing a stick figure Cloud with his cap and smashed, spiky hair. She doodles music notes around him, and once they’re done, their hands are smeared with chalk and sidewalk residue.

They start hanging out after school together in her backyard. She has a large, ancient oak tree in the corner of their lot, and it’s a nice place to find shade in the changing heat of the season. Cloud pops his earbuds in and listens to her new list of music, occasionally pulling out his homework and silently scribbling out answers alongside her. Then, he goes home to finish a full or part of a drawing or doodle at his desk.

Cloud gives Tifa a single flower at lunch on Valentine’s Day. Tifa gets tickets to a heavy metal concert for that weekend. Cloud has never gotten such a thoughtful present from anyone, and he’s not sure how to accept it.

Tifa simply grins at his speechlessness, and he’s not sure what else to do but kiss her.

When they go to see the band, Tifa’s ears don’t bleed during the whole thing, and Cloud takes her out for pizza afterwards. Cid prattles to them about taking life by the reins and living it up while they’re young. Cloud asks him if he’s drunk and gets cuffed on the ear in answer. Shera, his wife, arrives later that evening when they are still sitting at the table, stuffed with bread and cheese, and she smiles at them. She goes so far as to pat Cloud on the head, though Cloud ducks in attempt to avoid it.

They get in Tifa’s car and drive toward the trails leading around Mt. Nibel. There is an overlook, the view encompassing a deep, cavernous valley along with the high, steep and craggy cliffs. They park on the grassy terrain of the hill, and Tifa kisses him over the console. They move to the backseat and kiss there, too. Cloud touches her how she likes it, and he moves down to kiss her and lick her—something they haven’t done as much, but the things they’d like to do more. It is still new and exciting, and it always feels new and exciting when they touch and kiss this way. They get bolder and more comfortable with their bodies, but there are still insecurities. There are still places they haven’t explored.

Tifa didn’t allow Cloud to _see_ her for a while. She had been embarrassed. “It’s not pretty,” she had said. “It’s gross.”

“Nothing about you is gross,” Cloud had answered, automatically and without thinking. “Dicks are what’re ugly, and you’ve seen mine.”

She had laughed. “I don’t think so.” She kissed him. “Not at all.”

She had slowly let him uncover her over the month of January. One day, it had been her shirt, and another day it had been her bra. She had been shy, blushing and uncomfortable, and Cloud tried his best to ease her mind. He kissed her anywhere he could. It was easier to tell her she was beautiful, that way, as she was topless against him in the darkness of her room. It was easy to show her how much he admired her with his lips and tongue and teeth.

Eventually, she had taken off his shirt, too, and he inched his hand underneath the band of her underwear. Kissing and touching and everything that did not consist of utilizing a condom. 

In the back of her car, Cloud tastes her. He memorizes her texture and the lines and divots that scatter along the inches of her skin. He immerses himself in it, lost in between her cries and how she runs her fingers through his hair. Her trembles and quivers imprint on his mind, and her legs are spread like an offering.

Cloud takes it. He takes as much as he can.

But Tifa takes back. She grabs him. She asks if she can wrap her lips around him like he’s only imagined in the shower, and he can do nothing but what she wants.

“You were right. It’s gross, isn’t it?” he asks her when it’s over, staring dazedly up at the roof of the car. Tifa grins at him, pushing back a lock of her hair.

“Nothing about you is gross,” she repeats his own words back at him, laughing at how utterly incapacitated he must look, because he certainly feels that way. Boneless. On another plane of life.

That’s the night Cloud realizes what it’s like to be in love with Tifa Lockhart.

He thinks he’s been here a very long time.

* * *

February strides into March. The calendar strips down to April.

Before they know it, May is upon them. The rich decadence of spring, the dewy days filled with rain are balanced with sunshine, and the days grow longer and longer. It means nothing to the drumbeat of their lives. It begins to pass them like a flock of birds, a blink of a shadow passing overhead.

“What do you want for your birthday?” Cloud asks her a few days beforehand.

Tifa taps her lips with her pencil, staring down at her math problem.

“Hm…I don’t know. I don’t really want anything,” she answers.

Cloud gives her a dry look. “C’mon, Tifa. There’s got to be something you want.”

She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Not really.”

She tries to hide it, but there _is_ something she wants. It isn’t a tangible gift. It’s…it’s something that will be uncertain until the time comes for it, and Tifa doesn’t like thinking about it.

As the days creep closer and closer to graduation, Tifa isn’t sure what to do.

“Tifa…” Cloud trails. He must notice her hesitation. He’s gotten too good at reading her.

She answers him with a sunny smile, a sudden idea coming to mind. He blinks at her change in mood.

“Oh, I know what I want!” she exclaims. “A drawing.”

Cloud’s eyes widen. “A drawing?”

“Yes,” she smiles. “I would love for you to draw something for me.”

“O-okay,” Cloud says, crossing his arms. “What do you want me to draw?”

She thinks about this for a while, the air becoming quiet between them. She stares at her lap before she looks up at him.

“A memory,” she says. “One of your favorite memories that you have.”

Cloud’s lips turn down in a contemplative frown. “I…okay, sure. I can do that.”

She grins at him, the excitement fluttering in her system. He’s shown her a lot of his work. Flowers. Landscapes. Objects. Dynamic motion.

But something so personal? A piece of him? No. Not yet.

That’s what she wants.

Something intangible made real.

* * *

Her birthday falls on a Thursday. Cloud spends his time with her at lunch and for a few minutes after school. He acts a little more anxious than he has been for a while, and Tifa can’t understand why until he tells her he won’t give her his present until that evening.

“Wanna meet in your backyard after dinner?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, lighting up. “I can’t wait.”

Her father is waiting for her when she gets home. Usually, for her birthday, he’ll buy her favorite cake from the lone bakery in town. It’s lemon blueberry, filled with rich jam in between the layers and dressed in a bright, lemony buttercream. He’ll have a few presents ready for her to unwrap, and Tifa usually knows what they are. She is always diligent in making a list for him, having it ready at least a few weeks in advance so he can get everything in between his busy schedule.

“Happy birthday, darling,” he tells her, kissing her cheeks as she enters the doorway.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she says, smiling.

“Did you have a good day?” he asks as they walk to the dining room. She spies a handful of boxes on the table, her cake the centerpiece. She quickens her pace towards all of it.

Birthdays are selfish days. They make you think about everything you love and what you cherish, always distracting her from thinking of others. Deep inside, Tifa loves her birthday. It’s the one day where it actually feels okay to want something without worry.

She counts four wrapped presents. She knows exactly what she’ll open. This is nice, too. She’s not very keen on surprises. The routine her and her father have for birthdays suits her perfectly.

Her eyes snag on a small, rectangular piece of paper, noticing a small bow on the corner of it. That wasn’t on her list, and her heart suddenly speeds up.

Her father comes up behind her, placing a palm on her shoulder.

“There is one present you received in the mail yesterday,” he says, and she can hear his smile in his words without having to look up. “I thought it was perfect to give it to you, today.”

This is not the first letter Tifa has received. The other colleges who sent her acceptances were not worth her time—or so her father had said. She needs to go to a school that is worthy of her and give her the education and skill set that she needs, whatever she would like to pursue.

Tifa’s hands begin to sweat. That envelope contains her future. She knows it.

It’s terrifying.

“Um, yeah. Okay.”

She drops her backpack by a dining chair, and she reaches for the envelope. Midgar University’s emblem is bold on the front, her name in the window of the letter.

She takes a breath before carefully scooping her thumb underneath the seal, ripping it open. She pulls out the paper.

 _Dear Tifa Lockhart,_ it reads.

_We are pleased to inform you…_

Tifa stops reading. She knows what it says. She’s read a handful of other acceptance letters to know the spiel. Her breath catches in her throat. This is what she’s wanted. This one last letter. To please her father and make him happy—finally, just a little happy—and to feel like the busy, relentless last few years of high school meant something.

It’s shocking how she doesn’t care about it as much as she had before.

She’s started to care about tomorrow. She no longer cared about next year. When had that happened? It has been so gradual, she hasn’t noticed it. She hasn’t thought about it. She lived in the moments. In the texts and walks home and lunchtime.

Now, though…now…

“Tifa, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Her father squeezes her shoulder, and she chokes, her vision blurring. To her horror, her eyes are beginning to well up with tears. “N-nothing. I got in. I—“

“Oh, of course you did, honey,” he says, wrapping his arm fully around her shoulder, bringing her into his side. His cologne assaults her, and it is a very mild comfort as it mixes with her tears. “No reason to cry. I am so proud of you.”

“I—I—“ she stutters, gritting her teeth and shaking her head. “Dad, I…I don’t want to go.”

He stills, looking at her. “What?”

“I mean, I’m not—I’m not sure. Cloud didn’t apply, and—“ she stops, taking a breath and collecting herself. “Cloud didn’t apply for that college.”

“Ah. Cloud,” her father drawls, sudden acknowledgement crossing over his features. “You’re still with that boy?”

Her father has believed she would break up with Cloud every day since she admitted she had a boyfriend. Her father had not been happy about it, which was no surprise. He was never happy about Tifa mentioning having boyfriends. But she had never had anything serious before, and so he waved it off without much comment. She had told him small things about him at the dinner table: his hobbies, his interestes, everything except the bad things, like constantly getting in trouble and meeting him in detention. Her father did not seem very interested, and Tifa believed he thought this was another passing fancy of hers.

As time passed, however, her father had been becoming more and more stringent on her curfew, more suspicious of her time outside the home, and more critical of her outfits.

“Another dress?” he had asked once, an eyebrow raised.

“I like dresses,” she answered defensively.

“Hm,” he grunted, and his eyes seared her the entire way out the door.

After Valentine’s Day, her curfew went from midnight to eleven o’clock. Tifa had been red the entire weekend, wondering if her father somehow knew what her and Cloud had done to one another in the back of her car.

“Yes. I’m still with him,” she says, staring at the letter in her hands. “And I want to stay with him. I care about him.”

“Tifa…” her father hedges, coming to stand in front of her. He places his hands on her shoulders, waiting for her to look up at him. She doesn’t. “Tifa, look at me.”

Eventually, she does. She reaches up to wipe away the lingering dampness from underneath her eye.

“Listen to me, sweetheart,” he says. “I know you like this boy, and I know you might think he’s different. But all boys at this age are the same.”

“Dad,” Tifa tries to interrupt. “That’s not—“

“No, Tifa, listen,” he says. “You’ve just turned eighteen. You’re a young woman, now, but that doesn’t mean anything without experience. You don’t know the world outside of Nibelheim. There’s a whole, wide world out there, and relationships of all kinds come and go. They are a dime a dozen.” He shakes his head, his lips in a serious line. “It will not and should not hold you back from what you deserve.”

Tifa blinks, a heavy, rejecting pressure filling up her chest. “It’s no—they are not a dime a dozen! He’s so much more than you think—“

“He is very average, Tifa. Mediocre at best,” he says, shaking his head. “I know what you’ve told me about him. He is not in the top of his class for colleges to offer scholarships _or_ look at him seriously. We’ve lived across from them for years. I’ve talked with Claudia on occasion. I know how difficult it has been for her to make ends meet.”

Tifa bites the inside of her lip. Her and Cloud have talked about that, sometimes. Cloud would always breeze past the topic.

Her father sighs. “Perhaps I’ve allowed too much freedom in your dalliance with him. You know just as much as I do, Tifa, that ambition right now dictates your future. All I’ve ever seen that boy do is draw.”

Tifa feels her chest beginning to heave and constrict. The air becomes harder to inhale.

“He is not mediocre,” she says, her eyes burning not with fear, but with knowing. She shrugs his hands off her shoulders. “He’s smart. He could do anything he wanted.”

“And what does he want? Have you asked him?” He frowns at her. “It’s hard to know what you want at such a young age, but you must have direction. Without it, he’ll be aimless. And you shouldn’t need to babysit him, Tifa.”

Babysit. There’s that word, again, the one Cloud had said to her at the Christmas party.

Her eyebrows come down around her eyes. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“You never brought him around,” he counters. “If you were serious about him, I would have thought you’d bring him to the house.”

 _I have,_ she immediately thinks. But he’s right. She didn’t bring him around. She didn’t want her father to know him. She knew he’d act this way, and she didn’t want Cloud to experience it. Her father wouldn’t give him the time of day. He’d criticize Cloud’s rap sheet. He’d dismiss him at the surface without looking underneath. He’s done it before, so many times. She couldn’t imagine him doing it to Cloud, too.

But he already has. Why had she thought it could be any different?

“When have you ever cared about my friends, Dad?” she asks, her voice sharper than she intends.

His face falls. “Tifa…”

She sighs, shaking her head. “I don’t want to talk about this, anymore.” I’ll open my presents later.”

She steps around him, heading to the stairs.

“Tifa—“

She takes the steps two at a time, and she slams her bedroom door behind her. She’s never felt such a tightening rage in her chest. How it grips and contracts like a muscle on bone, how it makes it so hard for her to breathe. Her eyes well up again, and she swipes at them roughly.

She grabs her phone, opening up her message and staring at Cloud’s contact.

Suddenly—

Suddenly, she’s not sure if she can face him. She’d have to tell about her acceptance. She’ll more than likely cry. She’d tell him about how he was right—nothing lasts in high school. Who was she kidding? What had she thought? That they’d follow each other after high school? That they’d want the same thing?

 _Hey,_ she types out. _Is it okay if we move the gift giving to tomorrow?_

 _Sure,_ he replies. _Everything okay?_

 _No,_ she thinks. She lies on her bed, curling up on it and holding her phone close.

_Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll tell you later._

On impulse, she makes another response. _I’d still like to see you, though. Just no presents._

 _Okay,_ he replies. _Still your backyard?_

Tifa stares at her ceiling.

_How about the swing sets? At the park across the street._

_Yeah, I’ll be there,_ he says. _Same time?_

 _Yes,_ she responds, looking at the clock on her phone. She has about an hour to recover. She huffs a sigh, rolling onto her stomach. She thinks longer about the future and the details she hasn’t allowed herself to think on, once seeming so far away when now they are a mere few weeks outside of her periphery.

She grabs her pillow and smashes her face into it, closing her eyes and imagining the potential places she could be in a few moths. It’s so overwhelming that she has to stop, and instead, she imagines what her conversation might look like with Cloud.

She’s going to have to tell him. They’ll discuss. Maybe she’ll actually ask him about where he wants to be. He’s already said some harsh things about himself— _I love drawing, but it’s a hobby. I can’t live off a hobby, right?_

He jokes about being a starving artist. His apathetic shrugs about college. _I don’t know. We’ll see,_ he’s told her.

Unable to take the anticipation of it, Tifa pushes off her bed. She walks to her door and softly turns the knob, peeking her head out into the hallway. She tiptoes towards the staircase, not wanting to disturb her father and not yet ready to talk to him or make up. She’ll do it later.

She is not so lucky to avoid him. He sees her walking past the opening doorway to his home office.

“Tifa?” he asks. “Where are you going?”

She winces when he calls after her. “To the park,” she answers, continuing to walk to the front doors. “The swing sets. I just want to…think.”

“Alright…” he trails. “Please, don’t stay out too late.”

“I’m not,” she says, quickening her pace and clicking the door shut behind her. She presses her back into it before sighing, then making her way towards the other side of the street. Her hands ring the ends of her hair, and she stares at the pavement under her feet.

She finds the swing set blessedly empty, and she takes a seat in one, the plastic dipping under her weight and the chains squeaking with age. It’s funny, she thinks, how these swing sets have passed the true test of time. They have simply stayed the same, never leaving and always there when she’s needed them. If only everything could be that way.

She sighs. She’s being petulant and dramatic. But it _is_ her birthday, and it’s not supposed to feel this way. It’s supposed to be a nice day. It’s not supposed to _suck._

Soon, she hears his sneakers softly padding against the pavement of the street. She glances up from her swing, and she sees him with a lazy t-shirt, his beaten up jeans, and his backwards cap. She can’t help the grin that sneaks up on her, even with her melancholy mood.

“Hey,” he says as he comes to stand beside her, taking a seat in the swing. He gently sways into her, bumping at her hip.

“Hey,” she smiles. “How was dinner?”

“The usual,” he answers her, scuffing his shoe against the curve of dirt beneath his seat. “How was yours? Did you get the cake you wanted?”

Tifa’s smile falters. “Yeah. I did. I haven’t actually ate, yet. I, uh…” she hesitates. “My dad and I disagreed about something.”

Cloud makes a small grunt before they are quiet for a moment.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asks.

This is the moment. Where is her courage? She’s afraid to bring up the words. She already anticipates how he’ll react. The last thing she wants to do is make him uncomfortable, break the soft energy between them, and ruin…ruin something.

“Will you…will you promise not to get mad?” she asks, averting her eyes to the ground.

“Mad?” he repeats, his eyebrows quirking. “Why would I get mad?”

“It’s about…I mean…I don’t know,” she sighs. She twists in her seat, the chains overhead intertwining and unraveling. “I hate this topic.”

“What topic?” he says quietly. “It can’t be that bad.”

They are silent for a minute longer before Tifa allows herself to take a deep breath. She glances up to the stars overhead, speckling and shining.

“It’s about the future,” she admits, her voice small. “I…I got accepted to Midgar University.”

She doesn’t look at Cloud as she says it. She only peeks over at him when he answers her.

“Tifa, that’s great.” He’s giving her a genuine grin. They used to be rare. Now, he give them to her all the time. “I’m not surprised at all. I was wondering when you’d tell me you were going to a hot shot school.”

Tifa blinks, half expecting his happiness to dispel into a sudden frown. Instead, she feels her stomach tightening, like a braid pulled too tight.

“But…but if I go there, what about you?” she asks. “If you stay here, I don’t want to go.”

Cloud straightens. “Tifa—“

“I know that sounds a bit silly,” she continues, afraid of what he’ll say. “I just…I’m going to miss this.”

 _I’m going to miss us,_ she thinks, secretly, in the corners of her mind.

Cloud simply looks at her before his mouth is pulled into a frown. He shakes his head at her. “Tifa…it won’t be the end. Not if we don’t want it to be.” Then he begins to smile, and he reaches out to palm her cheek. She realizes belatedly that a tear has escaped her eye, and he thumbs it away. “Distance doesn’t matter. I was twenty feet away from you for _years._ I could have thrown a rock at your window.” He shrugs. “I didn’t.”

Her mouth parts, and she eases her face into his hand. He twists in his seat so that the chains creak. His knees bump hers, and they sway.

“You’re right,” she whispers. “I didn’t, either.”

“So…” he trails, dropping his hand slowly from her. His hands wrap around the chain links. “Distance…seems like a small inconvenience, right?”

For the first time that evening, her heart feels lighter. “Yeah. It does.”

She reaches forward and places her hands on his thighs. She leans until she gently taps his forehead with her own. “Thank you, Cloud.”

“Why are you thanking me?” he asks. “I was just stating the obvious.”

She chuckles. “No. I was…I’ve _been_ nervous about this. About the future.”

“It’s what you make it,” he mumbles, leaning forward a little bit more. He kisses her. She tilts her head to kiss him back.

“You should go to the best school there is,” he says, breaking away slightly. “That’s where you should go. You shouldn’t let anything hold you back.”

She blushes under his words. They are meaningful and certain. She lifts a hand to rest it on his chest. “What do you want to do, Cloud?”

He smirks at her. “I dunno. Cause trouble. Maybe I’ll enlist.”

Tifa gasps, jerking back to gaze upon him with narrowed eyes. “ _Enlist?”_

He averts his eyes, scoffing. “Maybe. I’ve thought about a few different things. Enlisting sounds…”

Tifa is already shaking her head. “No.”

“It sounds…possible, you know?” he says, ignoring her aggrieved look. She feels her face pinching all over. “It’s cheap. They give you everything you need. My mom wouldn’t have to worry about money.”

“ _Cloud,”_ Tifa whispers harshly. “ _No._ You can’t enlist. You’d be sacrificing…everything. You’d be stationed who knows where, they’d make you kill people, they’d—“

“Tifa,” Cloud interrupts her, placing a hand on hers. It’s still on his chest, and she’s beginning to grip it with relentless fervor. “It’s okay. It would be okay. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

Her eyes are starting to fog over again, and she’s mad about all of it. From one low, to a high, to another low.

The worst birthday.

“It is as bad as it sounds,” she mutters, and even she knows she’s pouting. “You could die. You might not ever come back.”

He tilts his head at her. “Tifa…”

“Your mom would be so _sad._ Think about her, too,” Tifa says. She stares at their hands, and she finally loosens her grip. She turns her hand over so that their palms glide together. “She’d be worried sick all the time.”

“She’d be okay,” Cloud says softly.

“And you wouldn’t be happy. What about drawing? Your art?” she asks. “You wouldn’t be able to focus on what you love doing.”

“You never know,” he says, his voice blasé and apathetic. His usual tone. “They might finally teach me some discipline.”

Tifa puckers her lips, giving him a light glare at his jesting. “I’m serious, Cloud.”

“I am, too,” he says, beginning to smirk. “Maybe I could make a name for myself. Become worthy enough for your dad. Get a purple heart or some shit.”

At the mention of her father, Tifa huffs. “ _Cloud._ Who cares what my dad thinks. I care about you. That’s all—that’s all that should matter.” She shakes her head. “You don’t need a purple heart.”

“Might be nice, though,” he says faintly. She gazes up at him and catches his eyes. He stares back at her. “It’d be like a trophy I’d bring back to you.”

She only shakes her head, over and over. “I knew I’d hate this topic.”

Cloud scoffs a laugh. “We’ll see what happens. I’ll figure something out. But you—“ he says, talking over her before she can protest. “You’re going to go to Midgar. You’re going to be amazing.”

He reaches up and takes off his cap, running a hand through his messy, smashed hair. His spikes almost immediately come back to life from his fingers, and he leans forward to place his cap on her head. He adjusts it so that the lip of it is crooked, just off center, with the logo facing forward. He admires it, a soft smile on his face.

“Looks much better on you,” he says, slotting their fingers together as their hands mesh. “Happy birthday, Tifa.”

She wants to cry again. Something is wrong with her, because she’s never _this_ emotional. Looking at him here, Tifa feels that bludgeoning in her stomach—that sudden, desperate hit, ramming into her like a flood. It is a mad wash of affection that overcomes her. She tugs him forward and deeply kisses him. She wraps her hands around each side of his face, and she pushes them closer and closer. There is no space left between them. Her tongue slips into his mouth, and he envelops her with his heat. His hands roam to her hips then across to her lower back. Her hands wrap around his neck. They kiss and kiss. They kiss until Tifa hopes he can feel just a piece of the love she has for him.

She hopes he can notice it in the way that she pushes into him, how her fingers dig so possessively into his skin.

Later that evening, after Tifa eats her cake and goes through the motion of opening presents with her father, Tifa lies back on her bed. She gently reaches for Cloud’s cap, sitting on her nightstand. She stares at it and traces the dulled, threaded patterns of Midgar Soldier’s logo.

She has a different reason for loving her birthday, now. Perhaps the reason is just as selfish as the one before, but she loves her birthday because Cloud met her at the swing sets. He concerned her mind as much as he eased it.

He made her feel like anything was possible.

She vows to make him feel that way, too.

* * *

The next day, Cloud is called into Mrs. Bouchard’s office.

It is during fifth period, right after spending lunch with Tifa. She was in a better mood than that previous evening, and she seemed to be contentedly distracted by showing him the presents she had opened. She wore his cap, that day, and she teased that it was her favorite present. She’ll probably even like it more than the drawing he’ll give her later. Cloud had blushed at that before kissing her the rest of the time.

When Cloud is given an appointment slip to meet with Mrs. Bouchard, he realizes he hasn’t seen her in _months,_ now. It’s actually quite a feat, all things considered. Cloud hasn’t been placed in detention ever since he punched Mitch in the hallway.

It’s all Tifa’s doing. It’s because he wanted to walk home with her every day. If he had to go to detention, he’d miss it.

When he arrives in the threshold of her office, he taps at her door. She glances up from her papers, slipping off her glasses and waving him in.

“Ah, Cloud. It has certainly been a minute,” she greets him. Her tone is upbeat and energized. He’s used to seeing her at the end of the day, where she tends to run on the last dregs of her sarcastic fuel.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, slipping into the space. She points to a chair, and he takes it.

It’s the end of the year counseling sessions. Each student is brought to their counselors for what Cloud feels is an infomercial to their potential future education. The Nibelheim school system tries to keep their graduation rate high enough in their continent to keep good standing. Without it, they lose funding, and lost funding is not acceptable. Trying to encourage their students, or at least help them on their way to success in the _real world,_ is one way to keep those fundings.

At least, that’s what Cloud’s deduced. He’s always been suspicious about authority. Does anyone do the right thing because it’s the _right_ thing? Or because there’s something to gain from it?

Luckily, he believes in Mrs. Bouchard. She’s been there for him over the past five years, and Cloud will admit to no one that he’s fond of her.

Mrs. Bouchard eases back from her desk, steepling her hands together on top of the papers. She glances over Cloud and gives him a small smile.

“How are you, Cloud? No detentions lately.”

Cloud shrugs. “Nope. No detentions.”

“You and Tifa still getting along?” she asks, raising a pointed brow.

“Yep,” he says, not caring to elaborate. “We get along fine.”

“Very glad to hear it,” she says, smiling again. “Now, I know you know you are here today to talk about your future.”

Cloud shifts in his chair. After last night’s conversation with Tifa, it seems this conversation could not have had any better—or worse—timing.

“Right.”

“And I wanted to get your perspective, first.” She leans forward on her desk. She’d have more wrinkles had her bun not been pulled so taut and severely back on her head. “Do you have any ideas on what you would like to pursue?”

Cloud glances down to his hands in his lap.

“Not really,” he answers. “I’ve thought about the army.”

“The army?” Mrs. Bouchard asks. “Why is that?”

Cloud shrugs, not caring to answer. She frowns at him.

“Cloud, spare me five minutes of your attitude. That’s all I ask. Okay?”

Her tone is not to be brokered with. Cloud sighs.

“Fine.”

“So, tell me. Why do you want to go to the army?”

“They take anyone,” he answers. “Cost. Job security.”

Her lips thin. “Not _anyone._ The cost, I understand. But I wouldn’t call the job secure, either.”

Cloud merely looks off to the side. “It’s either that or nothing.”

She lifts a pointed brow. “Nothing? Why is that?”

He wants to roll his eyes. “Grades.”

Mrs. Bouchard slowly shakes her head. “Grades aren’t _everything,_ Cloud. There are trade schools. Technical schools.” She pauses. “Fine arts schools, too.”

Cloud grimaces. “I wouldn’t get in.”

He’s researched some of them. The ones he would dream about getting into—Cosmo Canyon, Mideel, and now at the top of his list, Midgar’s Academy of Fine Arts. But he’d require something next to a miracle.

“And why do you think you wouldn’t?” she asks. “Yes, they look at grades, but they also look at other specific items on your resume. They look at your art portfolio.”

“I don’t have one,” Cloud says, and it’s a partial lie. If he considers _everything_ he’s drawn in the last few years, it _could_ be called a portfolio. But there is no specific theme. No common thread between them. No…common thread.

Cloud blushes. No, there is definitely a common thread.

Mrs. Bouchard tilts her head. “I’m sure you’ve drawn enough to consider it to be a partial portfolio, Cloud.”

His blush deepens, and he wills it away with every ounce of his being. “I don’t know.”

She sighs. “Well, Cloud, I will say that your grades aren’t as awful as you imply them to be, however, I want to make a deal with you.”

Cloud blinks, looking up at her. Intrigued, he furrows his brows. “A deal?”

Mrs. Bouchard nods. “I know a few people in the educational world. And as much as you try to prove otherwise, you’re a very talented, intelligent young man, Cloud.”

Uncomfortable at her words, Cloud averts his eyes to the floor.

“Now, _if_ you bring me what you might consider your own personal portfolio this coming Monday, I will look over it and send it to a few of the people I know and see what they think. If they like it, I would encourage you to apply.” Mrs. Bouchard begins to smile.

Cloud waits for her to continue. When she doesn’t, he asks, “And if they don’t like it?”

Mrs. Bouchard shakes her head, raising a hand to dismiss his words. “They will. Have faith.”

Not truly believing what he’s hearing, Cloud closes his hands into fists. “Uh…are any of these people you know from Midgar?”

Eyes knowing, Mrs. Bouchard says, “Is that your first choice?”

Swallowing, Cloud says, “Yeah.”

She nods. “I do have a few contacts.”

Cloud shifts in his seat again. “You…you don’t have to do this, Mrs. Bouchard.”

“Oh, but I want to, Cloud,” she says. Her eyes twinkle at him. “I’ve watched you grow. I’ve seen your work. I think it’s a lovely gift to have, and if you have the opportunity to channel it somewhere where it can become even lovelier? Well, I think the world would be better for it.”

Cloud blinks, taking in a deep breath. The impact of her words won’t hit him until later. For right now, Cloud only nods.

“I, uh, thanks.”

He is dismissed not long after, and once he takes his seat in his class, he begins to smile.

The future finally feels hopeful.

* * *

As Cloud and Tifa walk home that afternoon, Tifa can’t contain her excitement for his gift. She spends the journey hypothesizing which memory is his favorite.

“The swing sets?” she asks. “When we were younger?”

Cloud doesn’t answer her questions seriously. He only gives her smirks or sarcasm.

“Or maybe…when you punched Mitch in the eye?”

“That’s a good one,” Cloud admits.

“One of your detentions?”

“Mrs. Bouchard is pretty fun to hang out with.”

“Cross county?” she tries. “A concert?”

“Those are good memories, too.”

She playfully narrows her eyes at him. She begins to smile.

“You wanna know what my favorite memory is?” she asks.

He raises a brow, his mouth frowning with thought before his eyes fill with mirth.

“If you say it’s my mom buying me condoms, Tifa…”

She laughs brightly, threading her arm around his elbow.

“How did you know?” she grins.

He bumps her with his shoulder. “Lucky guess.”

She brought that up for nearly a whole week after it happened, just to watch him drown in embarrassment. He didn’t know why it made him blush every single time. That’s the only reason she’d tease him so relentlessly.

As they come up on their street, Tifa tells him she’ll wait in her backyard as she goes to grab his gift. Cloud nods his affirmation, suddenly becoming nervous again as he goes to his room, grabbing the thin, wrapped box. He takes a deep breath, thinking about the contents inside. In the same thought, he thinks about Mrs. Bouchard’s words from a few hours before.

_I think the world would be better for it._

Steadying himself, he takes the stairs two at a time and heads out to meet her.

She’s under the oak tree, having placed her backpack off tot he side. She’s resting her head on the trunk, her eyes closed and face serene. Cloud admires her for a moment before he treks towards her.

Her eyes open as soon as she hears him. She grins. Cloud’s anxiety immediately expands in his stomach at the sight.

He takes a seat beside her, and she presses into him, waiting to receive his offering.

He clears his throat. “Well, uh, here it is,” he says, handing the box over. Tifa’s eyes glitter, her excitement increasing tenfold.

She gently takes it, finding where the tape connects the wrapping. She wiggles her thumb underneath, and Cloud watches her unwrap his present in the most delicate way he’s ever seen anyone unwrap anything. She acts as if the wrapping is part of the present. He runs a hand through his hair, his amusement going to battle with his nerves.

Once she places the paper off to the side, she takes in the naked box. Her hands go to the lid and slowly lifts it up.

Inside is a photo album. Cloud used it to piece together his memories like snapshots. He’s placed different drawings in each sleeve of the pages, unable to choose one standout memory.

Tifa takes it out, her eyes roving over the binding. It’s purple—her favorite color, she’s told him—with a textured canvas cloth stretched over the frame. Tifa glances at Cloud before she opens it. Her eyes catch on the dedication.

_To: Tifa_

_You asked for my favorite memory._

_I had a few._

_From: Cloud_

She smiles, running a finger over the penmanship. “You made more than one?” she asks, glancing over to him.

Cloud shrugs. “Uh, yeah.”

“You didn’t have to do that, Cloud,” she says softly.

“Couldn’t help it,” he mumbles, glancing away.

"Well…thank you,” she says. “You have good handwriting.”

“I don’t. I took my time writing that,” he admits sheepishly.

Tifa giggles, going to turn the page. Her laughter stops when she sees the first drawing.

It is a simple picture. It’s the swing set across the street, holding the two seats that dangle from rusted chains. Silhouettes of their younger selves are settled beside one another, sitting underneath the afternoon sun.

Tifa begins to smile, her fingers tracing the lines. “This is one of my favorites, too,” she says. “This is so lovely.”

Cloud swallows, pressing back harder against the tree. Knowing which pictures are coming next, he can’t seem to find a reply.

She goes to turn the page, and he feels her reaction, pressed up against him as she is, more than he sees it.

The next is the picture he created when they reacquainted themselves. It’s entitled, _Walking Home,_ his expectations contrasting with his reality, sweating palms and bright eyes.

Tifa takes her time looking at it. Her mouth parts slightly. “This is dated in October,” she says.

“…yeah,” Cloud mutters. “I was afraid to walk with you that day. I thought it would be…difficult.”

Her hand lingers over the side of his expectation. “Sweaty palms and crossed out eyes,” she says, verbalizing the drawing. “That’s what you thought it would be like?”

“I did,” he answers, clearing his throat. “It wasn’t.”

“You still had sweaty palms,” she says.

Shrugging, he says, “A different kind of sweaty. A nervous kind instead of a sick kind.”

At this, Tifa smiles. “I know exactly what you mean.”

She relaxes further into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Cloud attempts to relax, too, but his palms are sweating just like the picture.

She turns the page to find the next. This picture is of her twirling into the air at a football game, suspended and flying. Her ponytail is swirling around her like a tornado, the blue and white ribbons the following the dark scythe of her hair. Everything else is blurred, the hands upraised underneath and the background football game. Tifa lingers on this page for a while before he feels her take a deep breath and says, “The football game. It’s one of your favorites?”

She sounds a little surprised, her voice faint.

“Yeah,” Cloud says. “That’s the night you gave me your number.”

Tifa abruptly laughs, but she shakes her head. “Oh, Cloud. This is so…”

She doesn’t finish her thought, instead turning the page. The next is a pair of hands layered on top of piano keys. There are black lines and music notes wrapped around their wrists, tapering up their forearms.

“When I taught you _Mary Had a Little Lamb?”_ she asks.

“Yes,” Cloud says. “All of the music, and the concerts were…amazing. Then you tried to teach me, and I realized how much I uh, enjoyed spending time with you.”

She looks up at him and gives him a lingering kiss on his cheek. “I got very nervous that day, at the piano,” she whispers. “I wanted to kiss you, and I was afraid. Afraid of what would happen between us.”

Cloud shifts slightly, catching her eyes. He begins to smile a little. “Glad I wasn’t the only one.”

Chuckling, she glances back to the page. “I love this. The music and the hands…”

She admires it for a while longer before moving on to the next one.

She inhales sharply when she sees it. Cloud’s heart rams against his sternum. He looks at her before looking away, feeling more and more vulnerable each page.

The top half of the page is a close-up of a kiss. Lips are smashing together, shining and textured. Her hand is against his chest, another along his neck and teasing his hair. The top half of their faces are cut off, and the bottom half of them twirl into an anatomical heart, the veins and arteries dilated and vibrant. Tifa’s fingers land on one of the arteries. He hears her exhale.

“Cloud…” she says.

Cloud’s cheeks prickle with embarrassment. “I, uh…”

“You felt this way?” she asks, running her fingers along the lines of the heart. “The heart and…my hands…”

“I still feel it,” he says without thinking. He blinks and turns away from her gaze.

She gently places the album to the side and turns her body to face him. She brings one hand up to the side of his face and turns him back toward her. “You feel it when we kiss?”

Face burning, Cloud stares at her and is filled to the brim with that feeling. “Yeah,” he says, his voice rough. “And when we do other things.”

Her eyes gleam at his words, and she leans forward to kiss him. It’s always so warm and electric. It pulls his heart up into his throat.

His hand falls into her hair. Hers falls to his chest, and it beats rapidly against her palm.

“There’s one more,” he tells her between kisses. “One more page.”

She slowly pulls away from him, staring at him with hooded eyes. “This is the best present I’ve ever received, Cloud.”

He smiles, and he feels a flutter of both pride and hope sidle up against his heart.

She remains close as she reaches over to grab the album. Placing it in her lap, she flips it to the last picture.

But it’s not a picture. It’s a prompt.

Cloud holds his breath, his eyes finding the grass beside his leg.

_Describe a time you fell in love._

His answer is underneath.

_This year was different in several ways. Each picture represents the beginning of a feeling. I haven’t felt any of them like this before. I’ve felt light and anxious and excited and sick. Sweaty and shy and vulnerable. All of them together created something new. Every day, I began to realize what they meant._

_Happy birthday, Tifa._

_I love you._


	7. Wonder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI! Yikes, it's been a while. I apologize for the wait, and I truly thank everyone who has followed this story and enjoyed the ride with me. It's been so fun writing these dweebs falling in love in high school.
> 
> I have absolutely adored every single one of you and your comments and support. I always do, but I'm going to shout it out over and over anyway. Thank you. 
> 
> Thank you, [Somebodys_Nightmare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somebodys_Nightmare/pseuds/Somebodys_Nightmare) for always betaing for me and giving me all the joy and encouragement that I subsist on when I write things. You're the best forever.
> 
> Happy reading! I hope you enjoy this last chapter, and Happy Valentine's Day<3

Tifa rereads over Cloud’s succinct handwriting.

_Happy birthday, Tifa._

_I love you._

She begins to tremble. Her eyes fog over, and she feels the tears trail, hot and warm, down her cheeks.

She hears Cloud take a breath. “I—Tifa—“

“Cloud—“ she chokes, rubbing fiercely at her eyes. She looks down at the words, stares at them, before she absorbs them into her heart. Once she does, she turns toward him, lips still taut from her emotions. She takes in his golden, spiky hair, the planes of his cheeks, the pinched concern of his beautiful, thoughtful eyes.

“I didn’t mean for this to make you cry,” he mumbles, his voice quiet and trailing off as they stare at one another.

His response pulls a smile out of her. She scoots closer to him, reaching out to touch his hand. He stills under her palm before he relaxes, and she says, “You love me?”

His cheeks flood with redness. He blinks and looks off to the side. “I…yes.”

She gently turns his head back to her, closing the distance between them with a kiss. She imagines it might feel different than their other kisses over the last few months. It might feel different with the tears lining her eyes, her blood soaring through her ears, and her heart racing and racing, as quick as Cloud’s feet at his cross country meets.

In the moment, it’s not. It’s not different. The flush of heat blooms across her like it always does when they are close, when they touch each other, and when they explore.

But now, this confession, this vulnerability passing in between their lips and his hair between her fingers, as she pulls him closer to her and wrenches him above her, squeezing his sides with her knees…it solidifies the swarming buzz around her heart. It cements what she’s known for so long.

“I love you, too,” she breathes against his lips, slamming them together again. “I love you, Cloud.”

She feels the shudder consume him, his hand shaking against her cheek. He pulls back slightly to look over her.

“I…” he tries, his voice breaking. “I, uh…good. That’s…good.”

Tifa giggles at how tongue-tied he is. He’s cute and handsome all at once. She is punched in the throat by how magnified her attraction is. She can stare upon him for hours and hours and never tire.

It suddenly hits her with a clawing force. He’s hers. She’s his. She wants more. She wants everything.

“Cloud…” she whispers, her hands interlaced behind his neck. “Can we…I mean, would you like to…”

One of his eyebrows raises. “What?”

Tifa bites the inside of her bottom lip, unable to match his stare. “Um…do you think we could…use the condoms your mom bought us?”

Cloud blinks at her. A second passes before he cracks a grin. It is utterly devious, and Tifa’s chest heaves, pressing up against his.

“Oh, so _now_ you want to use them?”

Blushing, she playfully pushes at his shoulders. “It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, I just…I mean, you know, we just…”

Cloud’s grin softens. “Yeah, I know. I’m just teasing.” He leans forward and kisses her underneath her jaw. She sighs, lolling her head to the side.

“Should’ve shown you my drawings earlier.”

Tifa laughs before softly moaning as he sucks on her neck. She rolls her hips unconsciously, and he makes a low noise against her skin. When he shifts his weight, pressing their lines together, Tifa’s vision blurs with sensation. He had been joking before, but the pictures of his art fly through her mind. She doesn’t know how he was able to encompass those emotions—all of those visceral feelings that give her so many goosebumps, lining her forehead with sweat.

As his warmth and muscle press her into the ground, she _wants_ him, wants him more than anything else. She feels it more than she had on the night of the Christmas party. She had been drunk on wine that night, but there is nothing to compare to the heightened feeling of the grass tickling the backs of her arms and her neck, her hair in his fingers, and his body hovering above her in this one moment of time.

She lies in her bed later that evening, staring at the pictures of the photo album. Her fingers linger over the curves and lines, and her eyes stray along the colors and shading. Her father’s words echo in her ears from earlier that week.

_Ambition dictates your future._

_All I’ve ever seen that boy do is draw._

_Mediocre at best._

Her eyes well up at the thought of them. She wishes the world could see his pictures.

Because then, everyone would know her father was wrong. He isn’t mediocre.

He’s brilliant.

* * *

Cloud’s palms are sweating. His heart is thudding harshly against his sternum.

He stares at the closed door. He runs his hand over his face and through his hair. He can’t believe he’s going to do this. He can honestly do it on his own. He’s done his research. He’s looked at reviews and different anecdotes—albeit _embarrassing_ anecdotes. He has a list, both written and mental. He just…wants it to be _right._

He sighs. He’s overthinking this. He knows he is. This is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever done.

Well… he concedes. Perhaps not the most ridiculous thing he’s ever done, but it certainly feels like it.

He raises his fist, and before his anxiety forces his hand and makes him run back upstairs to his bedroom, he knocks on the door.

“Hey, uh, Mom?”

“Oh, come in, sweetie,” she answers.

Cloud takes a breath and pushes the door open, tentatively peaking his head in. He sees his mother sitting up in bed, her reading glasses perched on her nose and a book open in her lap. She smiles when she sees him, gesturing for him to enter the room.

He debates it for a single moment before he relents, stepping inside the doorjamb. He fidgets, but he tries to cover it by shoving his hands in his pockets.

His mother gives him a once over, slipping off her glasses and placing them on her bedside table.

“Cloud? What’s the matter?” she asks, her voice gentle. “You never come to see me in the evenings anymore.”

Once, when Cloud had been a preteen, and even before that, he would come sit on his mother’s bed and watch movies with her, rebelling against his bedtime and feeling accomplished when he was able to stay awake through the whole ninety minutes of film. His mother had adamantly refused the first few times before she finally caved. It then became tradition before he grew up and out of the habit.

He shifts his weight, averting his eyes to the carpet. “I, uh, had a question…”

“Of course, sweetie,” she says. “You can ask anything.”

Cloud expels a breath through his nose. “I…uh…well, it’s about…Tifa.”

The words are pried from his throat with a shameful amount of force. He swallows, but his mother only smiles.

“Sure. What about Tifa?”

Grimacing, Cloud digs his hands even deeper in his pockets. “Um…just…so, remember when you gave me condoms?” he asks hurriedly, before he loses his nerve or dies completely from the burn of strangling embarrassment. “And you told me to be responsible and think with my brain instead of…uh, you know, anyway.” He shakes his head, the words coming out as fast as a machine gun. “We’ve never…but now I think…I was just…”

His mother begins to lightly laugh, and Cloud jerks, hunching his shoulders so high, they cover his ears.

“Oh, Cloud,” she answers, her words coated with amusement. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’m happy you came to ask me about this.”

Unease settles across Cloud’s stomach, and he still can’t force his gaze up to look at his mother.

“The box I’ve given you might be expired,” she says. “Do you want another one?”

His mother doesn’t even sound _one ounce_ the amount of appalled or abashed as Cloud feels. He bends his head further so she can’t see the horrid blush that encompasses his entire body.

“…I can buy them,” he mutters. “I just want the right ones.”

“Ah,” his mother says, acknowledgement coloring her tone. “I see.”

It’s silent for a few moments before Cloud can’t take it anymore. He dares to glance up at his mom, but he’s surprised at the look on her face. She seems to be contemplating before she finally says, “Cloud, there are no _right_ ones. It doesn’t matter what kind you use, only that you’re careful and care about each other. That’s all.”

Cloud averts his eyes again, nearly shifting his entire body away from her.

“Um, okay, yeah, thanks.”

He turns around fully and places his hand on the door, intending to flee immediately. His mother calls out before he can.

“Cloud?”

He pauses, but he doesn’t turn around.

He hears the smile in her voice when she says, “Thank you for asking me _and_ for listening.”

“…yep,” he mutters, slipping out of the room and attempting to close the door with gentle force. He sighs again, nearly darting to the stairs and taking them two at a time, slamming the door shut to his room and wanting to die.

He texts Tifa.

_So what kind of condoms do you want?_

She responds in little time.

_I guess it depends on what size you are._

She adds a winky face at the end. A large, smug and embarrassed grin stretches across his lips. Cloud scoffs and shakes his head at her response.

_You already know the answer to that._

_I think we should get the thinnest kind so I can feel you the most._

Cloud blushes furiously. He lies back on his bed and stares at the ceiling for a minute before recovering. He exhales and types.

 _Yeah,_ he answers. _I want to feel you the most, too._

He lies there, spending the rest of the night imagining it. Tifa Lockhart, spread and keening underneath him. Her on top of him. Her nails cutting into his stomach. Her tongue sliding against his teeth. Her breasts in his mouth and her thick hair curtaining and shielding them from the world.

Cloud gets up and takes a shower.

It doesn’t give him much relief.

 _I keep thinking about it,_ he admits to her later that evening.

 _I do, too,_ she answers him. _But…soon. Right?_

_Right. Soon._

Cloud’s timeline of soon is not one week, and it’s certainly not two weeks. But before he knows it, prom is upon them, two weeks after Tifa’s birthday. Her father does not take a business trip, and Cloud hasn’t felt comfortable sneaking her into his house with his mom downstairs. Tifa hadn’t liked the idea either.

“I want you to be as loud as you want,” Cloud says into her ear one day, walking home from school. He smirks at how she vividly she blushes.

She jams her hand against his arm, but there is no heat behind it. She narrows her eyes at him and shakes her head. “You think I’ll be loud enough for your mom to hear?”

Grinning, he says, “I’ll make you wake up the whole neighborhood.”

She looks scandalized, her eyes widening as she breathes a laugh. “Cloud!”

But before they arrive to their houses, she leans in and says, “You say it as if I’m the only one who makes noise.”

He reaches down to pinch her bottom, and she jumps, giggling and leaning into him. She curls her hands around his neck and brings him into a kiss.

Now, Cloud sighs before the full length mirror in his mother’s bathroom. He is wearing a classic tuxedo, the black jacket covering a crisp, white, button up dress shirt. The collar presses into his neck, the tie loose and dangling along his chest. He fidgets at his appearance, tugging at his suit vest. It is adorned with violet threads, decorated in curls and paisleys and teardrops.

“That’ll match my dress perfectly,” Tifa had told him when they went to the boutique together. Cloud needed all the help he could get, and Tifa was happy to oblige.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair and fluffing it even more. He feels stifled, hot and uncomfortable.

“Why the long face?”

His mother leans against the doorway of the bathroom, arms crossed and smiling. Cloud glances at her then looks away, flicking at his tie. He shrugs.

“Aren’t you excited?”

She pushes off the wall, coming to stand in front of him and fussing with his collar.

“Well, yeah, but…”

Cloud tips his head, watching her hands as they move to his tie. She gently folds it, working her magic and creating a flawless knot.

“Nervous?”

Blinking, Cloud maintains the stare on her fingers. It hits him then that’s the problem. It’s stupid. His palms are already becoming sweaty, and he hasn’t even—he hasn’t even left the house, yet. The anticipation of it seems to make it worse. He imagines Tifa will look beautiful, as always, accepting and wearing his corsage. She’ll pull him into a dance, as she’s already teased and threatened. They’ll be close all night, and maybe he’ll provoke her into biting her lip and blushing to her toes with all the things he wants to do to her when they are finally alone—not in the backseat of a car or muffling their affection in their respective bedrooms with the doors wide open, but where they had planned to be.

And maybe…maybe he’ll tell her about the meeting with Mrs. Bouchard. Maybe.

He’s nervous about that, too. There’s too much hope behind the prospect of having a future in Midgar. Mrs. Bouchard seemed to be at least mildly impressed by the art pieces he brought her at that Monday meeting, and if he leans into the sway she has with her contacts…it _could_ be something.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Nervous.”

Grinning, his mother finishes the knot, fitting it snugly against his throat. He grimaces at it, but his mother cups his cheek with her hand.

“Don’t be, sweetie. You and Tifa are going to have so much fun, tonight. I know you’ve always been averse to these types of things, what with the dancing and the groups of kids, but…” She lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “With Tifa being there, you’ll only enjoy yourself.” She taps his chin. “Tifa’s a lucky girl to have such a handsome boy as a date.”

His blush comes unwillingly. “ _Mom_ …”

Laughing, she pats his suit jacket and tilts her head, gesturing toward the doorway.

“It’s just about time to go. Can’t keep your lady waiting.”

Cloud rolls his eyes at her, but he smirks a little bit.

“Right.”

* * *

Cloud walks over to Tifa’s house. They had planned for Cloud to come get her and escort her across the sidewalk between their homes, Cloud’s mom bestowing her car for the evening.

“Can’t give her a ride on that bike of yours,” she had teased him.

Once he reaches the threshold of Tifa’s door, he fidgets, running a hand over his jacket. The summer evening is muggy and warm, and it doesn’t help with the tightness of his collar. He takes a breath and raises his hand to press the doorbell.

Tifa’s father opens the door a few moments later. He is a few inches taller than Cloud, his black hair cut short and tapering into his sideburns and beard. His eyes are a deep brown, filled with severity and suspicion. Cloud’s never known a more serious color—he used to believe browns were only good for shadows and warmth, chocolate, sweetness, and invitation. Mr. Lockhart has taught him that any color, no matter how simple or dull they might first seem, can be created into every sensation, every single feeling, both terrible and beautiful. Brown can be hate, swirled around a black pupil like a hurricane. It can be a force, a barrier, a fence with spiked edges.

“Mr. Strife,” he greets Cloud, his voice crumbly and rough.

“Mr. Lockhart,” Cloud states, his spine rigid. “Is Tifa ready?”

It looks like he’s about to step aside and allow him to wait in the entryway, or tell him to fuck off. Cloud has never been able to read him. His face is lined with displeasure, regardless of what he’s thinking.

“She is still getting—“

“Coming!”

Tifa calls from behind, as if she wants to keep them from interacting any longer than absolutely necessary. Cloud breathes out a sigh of relief, hearing the points of her shoes clap against the stairs. Tifa appears in the threshold in less than a few seconds, nudging her father to the side but grinning up at him.

“Thanks for getting the door, Dad.”

Tifa turns her face to Cloud, beaming. Cloud stares at her, face glowing with makeup and excitement. Her eyes glitter underneath thick, black lashes, and Cloud has learned color from Tifa, too. Red does not have to mean wrath, passion, or even heat and destruction.

Cloud smiles back.

Red can be wonder.

Mr. Lockhart gently cups Tifa’s shoulder before she moves any further. “Now, Tifa, I’ve already told you this, but be careful. Watch your surroundings. And you,” he says, turning his glare upon Cloud, murky and dark. “Take care of her. If you bring her home any later than midnight, there _will_ be consequences.”

“Dad!” Tifa says, frowning and turning on him. “I’m eighteen! Can’t I stay out any later?”

“As long as you live in my house, you will obey my rules.”

Tifa opens her mouth to retort, and Cloud knows the look on her face. She’ll push against him, and he’ll push just as forcefully back, suffocating her freedom even more.

“I’ll bring her back at midnight, Mr. Lockhart,” Cloud intervenes, garnering her father’s attention. “No later.”

Mr. Lockhart makes a low noise, a cross between a growl and a grunt, before he nods once.

“See to it that you do. Tifa, have fun.”

He kisses the top of her head, and Tifa nearly twists away from him. She steps forward and adjusts her purse on her shoulder, threading her arm through Cloud’s.

“I will!” she calls behind her to her dad. To Cloud, she whispers, “Let’s go.”

She nearly pulls him along, body taut and stiff as a board until they turn the corner and find the sidewalk pathway to Cloud’s house. As soon as they do, she loosens a breath.

“Sorry about that,” she says. “He always somehow _ruins_ everything.”

“He was just fine,” he tries, placing his other hand on her forearm. She must realize how tightly she’s squeezing his arm, relaxing slightly under his touch.

“I hate how he thinks you’re…nothing.”

Raising a brow, Cloud states, “He wouldn’t be so strict if he thought I was nothing.”

She purses her lips. “I wish he would trust me more and actually get to know you. Then he’d realize how great you are.”

He smiles at that, feeling his neck warm.

“If I was your dad, I wouldn’t trust me either,” he says.

Tifa gives him an exasperated look. “Why?”

“Because,” he shrugs. “You’re beautiful, and guys are assholes.”

Tifa dips her head, her hair hiding her profile. Cloud begins to grin. He loves when she becomes bashful like this.

“ _You’re_ not an asshole,” she says quietly.

“Teef, I’m a _total_ asshole. I bullied my way through high school and spent half my life in detention.”

She looks up at him, the faint blush still scattered on her cheeks. “You haven’t been in detention for months.”

Smirking, he says, “I’ve found better ways to spend my time.”

She shakes her head at him as they come upon his mom’s car in the driveway. Before Cloud can open the passenger door, his mother stands before the entry to the house.

“Tifa!” she greets, smiling brightly. “You are so lovely.”

“Oh, thank you,” Tifa says, dropping Cloud’s arm and smoothing down the front of her dress. She had been right—her dress matches the violet threads interwoven along the buttons of Cloud’s suit jacket and vest. The silky fabric curls around her neck in a halter, a daring piece of dress cutout on her chest, just hinting at her cleavage. It hugs at her ribcage, leaving the back open, and ending in a loos skirt at her knees. Her shoulders are fully on display, both delicate and strong underneath the lowlight of the new evening.

His mom waves them over. “You two need a picture before you leave! It would be a crime if you didn’t!”

Cloud sighs, but Tifa grins, nodding and grabbing his wrist. He suffers through his mother fussing over him and placing both him and Tifa into strategic body placements both in the living room and outside in front of his house.

“Mom,” he cuts in for the thousandth time. “We should go.”

“One more!” she answers him, flicking her wrist at them. “You need to put on your boutonnière! And Tifa, I know you want to wear your corsage.”

His mom had actually given him the idea for the type of flowers. Orchids, for love and strength, an iris for trust, and a bright burst of a yellow lily for success and abundance. At least, that’s what his mom described, putting it all together. Cloud didn’t rightly care, as long as Tifa liked it.

He fetches the corsage from the car, and Tifa takes the boutonnière from her purse. Cloud feels a strange embarrassment run over him as he places the corsage on her left wrist under his mother’s eye. Tifa doesn’t meet his stare as she pins the flowers to his lapel, and he spies the blush rising on her cheeks. A sense of relief washes over him that he’s not alone in how he feels.

“Perfect!” his mother says, taking a candid picture as Tifa finishes pinning the flowers. She finally glances up at him, and he runs a hand along the back of his neck. She gives him a little smile. “Now, just a few more pictures!”

Cloud groans, and Tifa giggles as they appease his mother for ten more minutes before they finally make their escape.

Claudia waves at them as Cloud backs up the car, turning onto the neighborhood road.

“Have fun!” she calls.

“We will!” Tifa answers as they take off.

“I think my mom had more fun taking pictures of us than she has doing anything else,” Cloud mutters.

Laughing, Tifa says, “She was very sweet. I can’t wait to see them. I bet you look so cute.”

Cloud makes a scoffing noise, muttering his annoyance under his breath. Tifa reaches over to pinch his cheek, and he moves out of her range, reaching over to poke her rib. She swats his hand playfully away before grabbing it.

“Hey,” she says, pulling his hand up toward her face. She sandwiches his palm between both of hers. “You look really…really nice, tonight.”

Cloud glances over at her, taking in as much of her figure as he can before he turns back to face the road. “Had to clean up for you.”

She narrows her eyes at him, her lips tilting up in a smirk. “Whatever, Cloud. You always look nice, even in your baggy jeans and baseball cap.”

He raises a brow. “I didn’t know that.”

She moves his hand to cup her cheek, interlacing her fingers with his before she trails it to her neck. Cloud’s supremely glad the school is only another turn away, because he can feel her pulse against his palm, and her warmth, and he senses her eyes on him, and he…he just…

“Did I ever tell you about the first cross country meet I went to?” she asks, gently squeezing his hand.

“I…uh…” he stutters, pulling into a parking space in the parking lot of the auditorium. He awkwardly reaches over with his left hand to place the car into park, finally glancing at her fully. “Don’t think so.”

Her brief smile is coy, even underneath the shimmer of her blush. She bites her lip, and he curls his fingers along the edge of her neck, feeling the corded muscle underneath. “I was really…um,” she pauses, breaking her stare. “I thought you looked really good in your uniform.”

Cloud blinks at her. He can’t help the grin. “What? Tifa, are you saying you were turned on at that meet?”

Tifa turns her head away, shaking her head. “I…yes. A little. I mean I—“

Cloud reaches forward, his other hand on her hip. Her palms land on his forearms and she looks up at him. She is red and violet and black, glowing under the light of the car console. Cloud pulls her in to kiss her, feeling the raging, monstrous desire spike within him. The hand on her hip travels to the open expanse of her lower back, and she mewls against his touch.

“We don’t have to go to prom, you know,” he says, the words wet against her mouth. “We can go somewhere else. Where we planned for later.”

“Cloud,” she breathes, her hands sliding up the arms of his jacket. They reach the nape of his neck. “I—no, I want to go for at least a little bit, but…”

Cloud groans, both in pleasure and disagreement, and she pulls him closer to her. Her tongue caresses his own, and he nearly pulls her over the console when a loud, hard knock resounds against the glass window.

They break apart, and Cloud snarls when he sees Ashley outside the window, arm and arm with Mitch.

“Tifa!” she screams. “Oh, my god, you guys, get a room!” Then her head falls back into a laugh. It sounds like a braying seagull. “Just kidding. C’mon! You can make-out later!”

That breaks the spell between them. Tifa grins at Cloud’s disgruntled face, wiping her thumb over his gloss-stained lips.

“Just a little while,” she says, her voice husky and the tone heavy with their kisses. Then she turns and pushes open the passenger door, stepping out and waiting for Cloud as he meets her. They are suddenly surrounded by Tifa’s friends, Miranda seemingly popping out of nowhere, her date trailing behind her, Ashley already jabbering about some girly thing, and a few others he doesn’t know very well.

He catches eyes with Mitch and glares. Mitch half-heartedly glares back before he turns away. Cloud jams his hands in his pockets and follows Tifa, already preparing to revert into his anti-social shell and observing her as she chats and entertains her friends.

Instead, Tifa, turns back to find him, reaching for his arm and tugging him in close to her, the circle dispersing just enough to accommodate him.

He doesn’t interact, simply listening to the voices around him and only talking if spoken to—but Tifa somehow makes it bearable, with her occasional knowing glances, her small smiles and soft nudges, because she knows he hates this.

But he could talk with her like this all day—running his thumb over her palm, answering her nudges with his own, raising a brow, smirking or scowling at her depending on the topic floating around the group. 

As they find tables and situate themselves in the dimly lit auditorium, the music blasting across the space, some of them break off to dance. The room is decently sized, streamers and balloons decorating the ceiling. There is a DJ in the corner, lights flashing all around him as he changes tracks. Tifa leans up to his ear when they are mostly alone, whispering, “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

He slides his hand across her lower back, and her smile sizzles against him.

“Oh, it was terrible.”

Her laugh is low and soothing. She grabs his other hand. “Let’s dance.”

Half-horrified, Cloud follows her onto the floor but says, “Tifa, I can’t dance.”

“Sway, then,” she grins, wrapping her hands around his collar. His find her hips automatically, and she presses in close like a cat. He feels the blood rush with a sudden immediacy.

The song isn’t a swaying song, but Tifa doesn’t seem to care as she sidles up so intimately against him, and he’s just fine with that.

The corsage on her wrist tickles the back of his neck. He smiles down at her.

“Alright. I guess _this_ isn’t so awful.”

She hums. “I knew you’d enjoy this, at least a _little_ bit.”

“Only because you’re here.”

He pushes her hips closer to him, and she makes a delicate gasp. He grins, leaning toward her until his nose brushes her cheek.

“I didn’t tell you this,” he says against her skin. “But I think you’re…you should know that I think you’re…”

He has to pause, feeling a chill run over him at how her fingers run along the spine of his neck.

“What do you think I am?” she whispers.

“I think…you take my breath away every day,” he finally admits. “But tonight, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted you so badly. As soon as I went to your house and saw you smiling at me… Your dad might hate me, and I don’t know why _you_ even like me, but I…”

Her grip tightens on his neck. “Cloud…” she says.

“I don’t have the words,” he answers, his blood suddenly too hot. It boils under his skin. He can feel every ripple, every movement of her dress, of her thighs against his own. His heart is an earthquake in his chest. “But I can draw you. I think I’ve been drawing you ever since I knew I could.”

She pulls back and drags his face down, her kiss messy and broken. They stop swaying. Cloud’s fingers press into the velvet of her skin, and her fingers weave between the soft spikes of his hair. It feels like that first kiss under the mistletoe, except it holds a different sort of power. Her lips had been sure and strong against his, dipped as they were in wine and Christmas. But here, surrounded by the watercolor of black and blue lights in the auditorium, her lips are decadent and full of that emotion she had reciprocated. Full of the love that is _his._

He breaks away, staring down at her half-lidded eyes. “Wanna go?”

She trails a hand down his torso, landing at his belt before grabbing his hand.

“Yes,” she says, and this time, she leads the way out the door.

* * *

Tifa has never been so sure about anything in her life. Perhaps it is silly to say that having sex with a boy is the one thing she is the most certain about in her eighteen years of living—but this may be the one thing, the _one_ thing, that has been completely untethered toward anyone else’s expectation, or judgment, or approval.

She is wearing his corsage, and he went to prom with her even though he _hated_ the entire prospect, he doesn’t care that her dad doesn’t approve, and he is the most magnificent boy in the world.

This is between them and only them.

She kisses him fervently before they make it to the car. Then she kisses him again when he settles into the driver’s seat. She bites his fingertips as he drives her to the spot they decided on two weeks ago, when they realized they _wouldn’t_ have the option for or luxury of a bed—but Tifa couldn’t care less then, and she can’t care any less, now.

“I think it’ll be better this way,” she had told him, whispering into her phone and staring up at her ceiling. “Under the stars.”

Cloud glances at her as she drags his hand over her chin and down her neck. A deep breath heaves itself out of him, and his eyes nearly glow green against the console light.

His gaze has always made her want to twist out of her skin, even when he used to glare at her with aversion and apathy. They had been like ice picks, then, but as they warmed with their friendship and melted with his desire—on her bed after the Christmas party, _that’s_ when she realized all the different shades of blue Cloud’s eyes could turn. And later, she realized how to make them change into her favorite color, sparkling and dark and tinged with his release.

She’s never seen this glow before—green, blue, and gold. She thinks about what he had said in the auditorium, about how she takes his breath away. She feels that same constriction around her lungs as they defy touching one another, as they simply stare at each other silently, finding a newly realized picnic spot along an obscure mountain trail, the grass soft and succulent from the muggy evening. They roll out the blanket Cloud had stowed away into the trunk, and Tifa lies across it, feeling a heightened swell in her belly as she watches him run a hand through his hair, staring and staring. It is warm enough that they need no other cover, and Tifa feels a line of sweat already beginning to form underneath her dress.

“Come here,” she breathes, sitting up and reaching for his knees.

He smirks at her begging, submitting to a kneel beside her. She leans back on her elbows and tugs on his tie, bringing him closer. She kisses him as soon as he’s within range, and she situates herself underneath him, opening her legs around his thighs. When she breaks the kiss, his eyes are still glowing that green, gold, and blue. Under the blanket of starlight, his gaze punches at her chest, and she’s sweating madly. Her mind buzzes with the frenzy of how much she wants him, and her fingers claw at his neck and shoulders, pushing against his suit jacket. Her palms fall across his suit vest, and one of his hands lands on her hip before it begins to trail down the side of her thigh. The other presses into the blanket for support, and as soon as his fingers find the skin of her knee, Tifa gasps.

He says nothing as he stares at her, kissing her again and again, his fingers slowly, so slowly, slipping underneath the hem of her dress. They are featherlight as they crawl up the flesh of her inner thigh, her skin sensitive and prickling against the callouses of his fingertips. She moans into his mouth, and it’s at that when Cloud says, “Gaia, I love you, Tifa.”

She can’t breathe—she hasn’t been able to really breathe ever since they got here—but it’s the most gorgeous kind of torture. Her legs spread of their own accord, and Cloud teases at the line of her panties. He turns his head and kisses her neck, biting it gently as he slips his hand underneath the band of her underwear.

As soon as he hits the seam of her skin, Tifa’s back arches. “Oh, Cloud,” she moans. “Oh, please.”

His pressure is almost immediate, running along her sides, drenching himself in her wetness, and she reaches for the back of his head, his chest, anywhere she can touch and she is angry—so angry at the clothes still impeding her ability to feel him like she wants.

He slides his fingers to her sensitive little button, and she nearly unravels already, right then, because he backs away to stare at her, all golden and green and blue, gilded by moonlight, and he gives her a devious, heartbreaking smile. Her back arches further, and her eyes flutter closed against his circles, his pressure gentle, then hard, then gentle, and it drives her insane. Her nails clip against the buttons of his suit vest.

“I want to draw you like this,” he says, his eyes bright but his voice rough and heady. “Just like this.”

Her hips lift off the blanket, and his rhythm hits her so well that she rises and rises. It happens so quickly—too fast—and she wants to suppress it, to slow it down and make it last, but he slips a finger inside of her before she can. That’s all it takes for her release to barrel down her spine. She wraps her hands around his neck, holding onto him like a ledge, and she cries out into his chest. Her eyes remain shut as he slowly removes his hand, and he reaches across with his other palm to cup her face.He presses the strands of hair away from her cheeks, sticking to her from the sweat beading against her skin.

She leans back eventually, and she stares up at him, her breaths heaving in and out. She immediately says, voice husky and more demanding than she’s ever heard it, “I want you, now.”

She pushes herself up and begins to undress him without an answer, and his vest is gone in a moment. She goes to unbutton his shirt before she’s distracted by his arousal, and she reaches down to push her palm against him, admiring his hardness. He hisses.

“Tifa.”

She undoes his belt, unbuckling his pants and pushing them down and out of the way enough to free him from the confines of his underwear.

Cloud wrenches open his shirt, but his movements become clumsier and sloppier as Tifa runs her hand over his silky, smooth skin.

His hands are shaking as he attempts to doff his shirt. Tifa chuckles lowly as she helps him with one hand, continuing to pleasure him with her other. She leans forward to kiss the divot in his chest, then kisses lower to his muscled abdomen. He expels a strained sigh, his hand landing on top of her head as she makes a wet trail toward his belly button.

“Tifa, you’re gonna make me…before we even…” he attempts to say, and Tifa eases off of him, glancing up to his glazed eyes.

“You made _me,”_ she says.

“That’s different,” he states, reaching around her neck and undoing the clasp. The collar opens, and Tifa allows the dress to fall like a flap, draping across her. She doesn’t wear a bra, the dress having been secure enough not to need it, and the air is so warm, she feels no discomfort. Regardless, the intensity of Cloud’s gaze make goosebumps form along her skin.

“How is it different?” she asks quietly, and Cloud leans over, silencing her with his lips and tongue.

“I’ve imagined…all the ways I could…make you come…” he says between kisses, and she trembles at his words as he helps to peel off the rest of her dress, her underwear following closely behind. They toss the articles of clothing to the side, and Tifa pushes at the pants still around his thighs. As he eventually maneuvers out of it, he reaches across to his suit jacket, pulling out a wrapper from the inside pocket. Tifa can’t help her delirious smile as she realizes it’s a condom.

“Cloud, you had it in your jacket pocket this whole time?” she asks as he positions himself over her. He laughs lightly, pressing their foreheads together.

“Of course I did. I have extra in the car.”

Tifa giggles, running her hands down his chest. He kisses her again so thoroughly,her grin evolves into a severe line. She wraps her legs around his waist, and his weight settles against her. She moans at the divinity of the feeling. Her hips swirl against him, and Cloud breaks away, cursing.

“Tifa—hang on.”

Cloud fumbles with the condom wrapper, trying to open it with still shaky fingers. Tifa’s heart feels like a hummingbird in her chest, and she asks, “Want me to help you?”

Cloud scoffs a laugh, a sweet smile on his lips as he manages to rip it open. “No, I got it.”

He slips it on himself as Tifa watches, fascinated by the whole thing. When Cloud looks up and catches her eyes, his cheeks become adorably ruddy.

“I, uh…” he stutters under her stare, and she smiles before his weight hits her again. She can feel his almost bare length against her thigh, and her eyes flutter.

“Cloud,” she says.

His eyes turn a different shade of blue, again. It isn’t flecked with gold or green. It’s the blue of a galaxy, painted with stars. He moves, and he’s at her entrance, and she whimpers because she wants him so badly, so badly—

His eyes are on her face as he slides in, and the rest of her breath squeezes out of her lungs. She is full of him, so deliciously full and stretched, and her legs press into his sides.

“Are you okay?” he asks her. His thoughtfulness almost breaks her, and she nods, leaning her face into his neck. She wraps her hands around his back.

He slides out slowly, then back in. It is painful for only a few, unhurried thrusts before she begins to experience the subtle waves of pleasure as he delves deeper and deeper inside of her. It is a build, just like she has when he touches her and licks her, but it is a full, decadent kind of build. It climbs up her stomach and taps at her throat. It burns at the back of her skull, and she digs her fingers into the muscles around his shoulder blades. She cries out as his thrusts become harder and smoother, the shakiness in his arms remaining, but they hold him above her, caging her inside the heat of his body. She is wrapped within him, and it is _close._ It is everything she has wanted but unlike what she expected. She didn’t know how it could be better than what they had already been exploring before, but it takes her, twists her, and recreates her.

Her release is a snap. It is an abrupt flood, drowning her, and she seizes up around him in desperation.

He follows her a few thrusts later, his chest and breaths trembling and cascading around her. His moan is muffled in her hair, but she absorbs it and falls in love with it. It is such an intimate, holy sound, and Tifa knows she is the only person in the world who has ever experienced it.

He gently unsheathes himself from her, rolling toward the side. She rolls with him, refusing to let him go. His face is so slackened, dewy with sweat and exertion, and a vision under the glow of the moon that Tifa smiles, absorbing this part of him within her, too.

“Are you—“

“That was—“

They speak at the same time. Cloud runs a hand through his hair and Tifa continues to smile.

“What were you going to say?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Just that it was perfect.”

A small, adorable smile lights up his face. “Yeah. It was really perfect.”

Tifa wonders if it should feel strange, being naked with him underneath the open night sky. It is vulnerable and free, but it is not at all uncomfortable. She is too overcome with the sickness of love, drenched in its happiness. Illuminated by starlight, Tifa feels like they have the power to do anything.

They lie on their sides facing each other. Cloud stares at her, open and content.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks her several minutes later. She almost laughs at how silly the question is.

“Of course you can,” she answers.

His ribs rise in a deep breath. Tifa’s smile suddenly falls at the serious pinch in his face.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” he starts. “But I talked with Mrs. Bouchard about…college.”

Blinking, Tifa pushes herself up onto her elbow. “You did? When?”

Averting his eyes, Cloud says, “Before your birthday and…a week after.”

“You could have told me,” she says, beginning to frown.

“I…didn’t want to disappoint you,” he states softly, his eyes finding her neck. “At the time, I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it, but…but now, I think I might be able to go to Midgar. I’m going to apply to other places, too,” he hurriedly says. “But…Mrs. Bouchard claims she likes my art, and she’s going to send it to people she knows—“

Tifa gasps. “Cloud, she _does_ love your art. Everyone should love your art, and she cares about _you,_ too. You know she does.” Her heart suddenly begins to swell. Her eyes start to water. “Tell me everything she said.”

He opens his mouth, his brows furrowing. “Tifa, please don’t cry, I—“

“I’m not!” she says, roughly rubbing at her eyes. “What did she say?”

He pauses, watching her for a moment before he tells her about their meetings. He explains he brought her a miniature portfolio of sorts, detailing the different styles and pieces he had created. Mrs. Bouchard might have been impressed, but Cloud couldn’t very much tell. She had smiled at him after examining the pieces, and she told him she’d let him know before graduation. He hasn’t let himself fall face first into the hope since, but…

“After tonight, I don’t know,” he says, his lips tilting up into a smile. “Seems more possible, now.”

Tifa matches his smile, agreeing. There’s something about tonight, their love like a freely flowing faucet between them, and the night covering them like a shield from the world.

“I’m glad you told me,” she says, leaning forward to kiss him.

“Sorry I didn’t before,” he answers in her mouth.

“It’s okay.” She shakes her head, her heart still swollen and heavy and full. “Whatever happens, I’ll be happy because I love you.”

Cloud’s face pinches before it smooths, and he pulls her in closer to him.

“Yeah. I love you, too.”

They curl around each other and make love one more time before they redress and head home, disheveled and mussed, decorated with each other’s affection.

* * *

The Tuesday before graduation, Cloud is called to Mrs. Bouchard’s office.

As soon as he gets the notice, he realizes he’ll know his future in less than five minutes. He rubs his suddenly sweaty palms against his jeans. Nothing like having the essence of your life being held in one tiny slip of paper.

When he arrives, Mrs. Bouchard calls him to sit in the chair before her desk. Her hands are steepled as she looks over him, whatever wrinkles she might have pulled taut from the severity of her bun. Cloud eyes her expression but garners nothing out of it. Her lips are puckered like they used to be when he would make some smartass retort in detention—he thought she was either always holding back a laugh or thoroughly displeased by his humor.

“I promised I’d get back to you before graduation, Cloud,” she says by way of greeting. “I sent off the portfolio you gave me to the creative director of Midgar University of Fine Arts. We communicated about your talents, your potential, your attitude, grades and test scores, and my own, personal opinion of you.”

Cloud raises his brows, leaning back in his chair. He crosses his arms over his chest and can’t help it when he says, “So, you’re trying to tell me I’m doomed.”

At that, Mrs. Bouchard’s puckered lips spread into a smile.

“On the contrary, Cloud, I told him you would be a very beneficial addition to their program. You have an eye for beauty and a thoughtful hand. Rough around the edges, yes, but you have also shown a great capacity for change—or, at least, _becoming.”_

She spreads her hands on her table, giving him a hard, examining stare.

“You haven’t fought with any of the students for several months, Cloud. Your temper has settled, and while this may or may not be because of your relationship with Ms. Lockhart, it is certainly a surprising thing. I’ve seen you almost every other month for three years over mild scuffles or ridiculous disputes, and now you have completely vanished from my radar.” She tilts her head at him. “I think that is a very marvelous thing.”

Cloud feels a warm, niggling sensation behind his sternum. He rubs at it absently with his hand.

“Must be love,” he mutters under his breath, quiet enough that Mrs. Bouchard raises a brow.

“What was that, Cloud?”

“Nothing,” he says louder, clearing his throat. “It has been a change of pace for me, and it’s…it’s definitely been all Tifa.”

Her face softens, and it perturbs him. Mrs. Bouchard is never… _soft._

“No, I wouldn’t say that, Cloud. It’s you, too. You chose to stop picking fights and getting into trouble. If the motive was a girl, well, so be it. But you know what I think?”

Cloud has no choice but to answer, “What?”

“I think she’s helped you start becoming who you’ve wanted to freely be. No more acting tough and protecting yourself,because you don’t have to. You never had to, but…sometimes, students find no other option. You should always feel accepted, and I wish you had. But now, I think you do, and I think you might realize your worth, too.”

That warm niggle occurs behind his sternum again, and he mildly wonders if he’s going to have some kind of strange, cardiac event. It takes him a while to realize that it's his pride, expanding underneath his skin. Worth. He had never truly thought of it, but when he thinks of Tifa—he thinks of how he doesn’t deserve her to love him. He doesn’t deserve what she gives him, and yet she gives it freely and abundantly.

He swallows. “I…I’m getting there.”

Mrs. Bouchard smiles. She reaches inside a drawer in her desk and pulls out an envelope. It is fat, and it looks pristine and crisp.

“You’ll get there,” she says, extending the envelope out to him. He ventures forward and takes it. He stares at the insignia of Midgar University of Fine Arts, labeling the top left corner. His name is elegantly written across the middle.

“Congratulations, Cloud,” she says. “You’ve been accepted.”

Cloud stares at it. He opens his mouth, looking up at her before gazing back down at the envelope.

“I…”

“Cloud Strife, without a witty comeback? My, you certainly _have_ changed.”

Cloud scoffs a laugh, smirking at her. “I wouldn’t go that far, Mrs. Bouchard, I’m just…”

 _Happy._ The word flits through his head. _Happy._

“Can I…” he glances up. “Can I call my mom?”

Her eyes glitter at him. “Of course you can.”

He nods, hopping to his feet and slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He pauses before he exits the room, turning to look at her.

“Thank you,” he says. “For everything. Especially for detention.”

She laughs, and it’s cracked and old, but lovely and lively. Cloud’s hands itch, and he knows what he’s going to draw next, taking in her lines and curves, the waves of her hidden wrinkles, and the depth of her care.

“You’re welcome, dear.”

He calls his mom to tell her to make spaghetti that night, enough for three.

And when he finds Tifa after class, he pulls her in for a kiss. It’s open and in front of everyone, and Tifa doesn’t hide her shock.

“Cloud, you never do that.”

He merely smirks at her blush, pulling her along to the edge of campus and inviting her to dinner. She readily accepts, continuing to stare at him. He knows she must see it—that happiness she’s fostered within him, and the weight of it, both in his jean pocket and the fingers interlocked with her own.

Becoming, he thinks. Yes. He’s becoming, adding lines to his canvas and different, surprising swirls of color. The black of the night sky and her thick, curtain of hair, the yellow of starlight and happiness, the white of hope and possibility…and red.

He smiles at her bemused look, kissing her again.

The red of love and wonder.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs that inspired this:
> 
> [Starsick](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qSB2XipJoM) by Maude Latour  
> (listen to her entire Starsick EP, because it's truly awesome and I have listened to it constantly over the last few weeks)
> 
> [Now and Then](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETE1Kqqx6II) by Sjowgren


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